Wizard in the Basement, Witch with the Key
by wendymarlowe
Summary: The war is over, and Hermione claims her potions master as a spoil of war - and to save him from Azkaban. He's still a prisoner awaiting trial, though, even if he is bound in the house Hermione, Ron, and Harry share instead of the wizard prison. The Ministry fits him with an anti-magic collar, leaving Hermione to hold the end of his (only somewhat metaphorical) chain.
1. Chapter 1

Severus Snape's first realization after waking up was that he was naked. The second was that he ached all over. The third was that Hermione Granger was staring at him.

"Professor?"

He shifted in the bed and was slightly mollified to discover that he was at least covered by a thin sheet. A quick glance around revealed that he was in the Hogwarts infirmary, which was full to bursting with medi-witches and -wizards.

_Oh Merlin - the battle_. It would have been inevitable - he heard the sounds of the commotion even from the Shrieking Shack. There had been a flurry of preparation, the confrontation with the Dark Lord, that damn snake, that damn Potter boy, and hours of cold silence lying on that hard floor knowing that control of the battle had been taking out of his hands. And then . . . his thoughts brought him full circle back to Hermione Granger, who was still staring.

"What?" he said. Or intended to say, because his voice came out sounding more like a hoarse whisper than the stern put-down he had intended.

She reacted like it was a good sign, though, smiling delightedly at him and grabbing his hand. Severus tried to pull away, but found he lacked the strength.

"Professor Snape - I saved your life, correct?"

He nodded cautiously.

"And according to wizarding law - you owe me a blood debt, is that right?"

_Damn her for being intelligent_. He nodded again and tried to fix her with a glare. Which she ignored. What was she getting at?

But she squeezed his hand again, hard, and leaned closer so her hair was brushing against his chest. Or would have been, if he hadn't been covered in that thin bedsheet.

"Quickly, please - I need you to declare that blood debt to me. I can explain later."

Severus considered refusing, just on principle, but she was right - he did owe it to her, much as he'd rather she never bring it up again. And he was honor-bound to follow through. "I, Severus Snape, declare a blood debt to Miss Hermione Granger." His voice was hoarse but understandable. "What the hell are you about, Miss Granger?"

She didn't answer, just flashed him that smile and squeezed his hand again. And didn't let go even when two large wizards appeared at the foot of the bed.

"Severus Snape?"

Severus eyed the man who had spoken - some muckety-muck at the ministry, most likely, judging from his robes. There was no way either man had actually participated in the battle against the Dark Lord - they both looked more suited to waging war against desktop clutter.

"You're to be transferred to Azkaban immediately, Headmaster Snape," the man continued, looking down at his clipboard. "You're charged with - let's see here - treason against the magical community and collusion with You Know Who." He cleared his throat. "Err, Voldemort. If you'll come with me, please-"

"No," interrupted Hermione.

The men looked at her as if seeing her at his side for the first time. The wizard with the clipboard clearly gave her a once-over and dismissed her as just another student, but the second wizard did a double-take.

"You're Hermione Granger. The friend of The Boy Who Lived."

She nodded. "That's me. And Professor Snape has just sworn his blood debt to me, which I'm collecting right now. You can have the head of the ministry contact me about it later, once you figure out who that will be."

Both wizards blinked at her. The one with the clipboard recovered first. "Miss Granger, I don't see what this has to do-"

"The blood debt supersedes his assignment to Azkaban, doesn't it?"

Clipboard Man nodded cautiously. "He's still being charged-"

"I understand that," she interrupted. "But while he's working off his blood debt, he will serve in my house instead. Which means he will not be going to Azkaban, unless and until he is found guilty. I will ensure he abides by the terms the ministry sets for prisoners awaiting a trial, but I will not allow him to be sent to that horrid prison."

The two wizards drew back several paces and conferred in hushed tones. Severus turned his attention to Hermione - what was she trying to do? He searched her face for a long moment, but she was ignoring him, her attention focused on the ministry wizards.

Finally they finished their hurried conference and returned. "Miss Granger," the one with the clipboard said, "this is highly unusual-"

"-but completely legal," the other finished for him. "We will help ensure Headmaster Snape safe transport to your house and we will provide the necessary supplies, but acceptance of this blood debt means you are also taking responsibility for his actions as long as he is in your custody." He fixed her with a condescending look. "If he misbehaves or escapes, you will be charged as well."

"I understand." Hermione's grip on his hand tightened imperceptibly. "He will probably be recovered enough to move in a day or two."


	2. Chapter 2

All told, it took closer to a week for Severus's wound to heal well enough for Madame Pomfrey to allow him to relocate to Hermione's house. It was, literally, a house - sometime in the intervening few days, she and Ron and Harry had undertaken to spend some of Harry's money on a piece of property in what looked like one of the nicer districts in London. It was a Victorian brick monstrosity with a wrought-iron fence around the anemic yard and some significant anti-muggle charms thrown about like a thick magical blanket. Severus's injury prevented him from apparating or arriving by flue, so he had a unique chance to experience the joys of muggle traffic in muggle London in a mostly-muggle automobile. By the time they reached the house, Severus was thoroughly sick of muggle anything.

Three ministry officials accompanied him on his journey, the four of them squashed uncomfortably in the non-magically-enhanced automobile interior. Severus hadn't seen his wand since his showdown with Nagini, of course, but he highly doubted he would have been allowed to magically augment the interior of the automobile anyway. The ministry wizards didn't seem all that inclined to permit much of anything. They left his hands bound for the entire trip.

They deposited him in Hermione's front hall with a single small bag of his belongings - many of the rest having been burned in the fire which followed the Battle of Hogwarts - and a black cloth sack tied with a leather thong, which one of the men presented to Hermione with some seriousness. "Do it here, please," he requested in a tone which implied it wasn't really a request.

Hermione accepted the sack with the appropriate gravitas and untied the leather. Inside was - _well damn_. She withdrew a wide leather collar, set with metal loops at regular intervals. The whole thing reeked of magic. Her eyes met his, asking permission . . . except she really wasn't, was she?

She cleared her throat, the sound echoing in the hall. "Is there a spell?"

"Just put it on him and tap it with your wand," one of the ministry wizards replied.

Hermione met Severus's eyes again, this time with a hint of an apology, and raised the collar to fasten it around his neck. The leather irritated his newly-acquired scar (courtesy of that damn snake), but Severus fought the urge to rub at it. His hands were still tied together behind his back, anyway.

She raised her wand and tapped the collar - and Severus's scar immediately stopped itching. He could feel the collar changing shape, constricting against the natural lines of his neck. He'd bet his wand that the clasp had disappeared, too. The sensation wasn't a bad one - it was rather nice, actually, if he ignored the implications - but he felt obliged to scowl anyway, just on principle.

One of the ministry wizards cleared his throat and took the bag back from Hermione. "That's that, then - the prisoner is in your hands, Miss Granger. His wand has been put in storage at the ministry, against the unlikely chance that he is allowed free again, and that anti-magic collar should keep him from giving you too much trouble. Please feel free to call us, though, if at any point you choose to rescind your blood debt and would prefer to give Headmaster Snape back to the care of the ministry."

"I'm sure your offer is appreciated." The sarcasm in her voice wouldn't have been out of place coming from his own mouth, Severus noted. And then the ministry wizards were gone, and Ron and Harry weren't home, and it was just him and Hermione standing together in an empty hall.

Part of him wanted to crack a joke, wither her with a sardonic put-down, but Severus was in new territory here. He waited in silence, ready for Hermione to explain.

But she didn't. She just studied him for a long moment, then reached down to pick up his bag of belongings and motioned for him to follow her through the house.

"The tour - here's the kitchen, the dining room, the loo, and the parlor." She waved in the direction of each room as she passed them. "Here are the stairs to the basement - watch your step."

It took all of Severus's concentration to keep his balance on the narrow stairs with his hands tied behind his back. He almost asked her to untie him - but it wasn't like she didn't see his predicament. If she refused to acknowledge his wrists were tied together, why should he bother?

"Upstairs are the bedrooms - mine, Ron's, and Harry's. But you will spend most of your time down here." She flipped a lightswitch and muggle electrical lights came on, illuminating a long room with a stone floor. There was a low bed along the short wall nearest the door, under a tiny window - more like a slit for the dregs of sunlight to filter through, really. But along the length of the room -

"Potion supplies." He didn't realize he said it aloud until he saw Hermione's tentative smile.

"The war may be over, Professor, but we need your skills more than ever. We lost an immense amount of knowledge at Hogwarts in the fire - most of the library was burned, and part of the charms classroom fell in on your study and the potions room below it." Her voice faltered. "There were - there were also several students bitten by werewolves during the battle. And about a hundred witches and wizards who weren't even involved, mostly children - Fenrir Greyback apparently spent quite a bit of time coercing specific witches and wizards to do Voldemort's bidding. And when they didn't . . . you understand."

Severus tore his gaze from the enormous workbench and the racks of ingredients, all carefully labeled in Hermione's neat handwriting. "What do you expect me to do?"

"Find a cure."

He gestured with his bound wrists. "Like this? I won't be much help to you without a wand, Miss Granger, and I won't be any help at all without my hands."

"I will assist as much as I can," she said. She nodded toward his collar. "That thing prevents you from using magic anyway, even if you were to steal my wand, but you can still prepare the ingredients and I will cast the spells. You'll just have to tell me what to do."

"And the ropes?" he pressed.

Hermione licked her lips, but wouldn't meet his eyes. "I, ah . . ." She glanced back toward the stairs nervously. "I'll have to consult with Ron and Harry first. But you can take some time down here to get to know where everything is, and I'll bring down your supper once they're home."

And with that, she escaped upstairs, leaving him alone in his new basement prison.


	3. Chapter 3

"You _WHAT?_"

Severus could hear Ron's angry bellow even from his bed in the basement. There had indeed been time to look through the bins and vials of ingredients, all neatly alphabetized and stored properly. Whatever else he might say about Miss Granger, she had been paying attention when he taught about proper ingredient management.

There had been little he could do without his hands, though, so eventually he wandered back over to the bed and lay down, contemplating the ceiling. There was a slight water stain in the corner near the window, and a few stubborn strands of spiderweb caught the light if he looked at the stone wall at the right angle.

Hermione's voice floated down through the ceiling, indistinct but insistent. Harry was up there, too, interjecting short bursts of chatter into the argument. Severus closed his eyes. He had found what he assumed was either storage or a private lavatory at the other end of the long room, but the door was closed and he hadn't been able to open it with his hands behind his back. Not that he could have managed his robes anyway. Although he wouldn't be able to ignore his bladder much longer . . .

The door to the basement opened and three sets of feet stomped down the wooden stairs. Ron's footsteps sounded the angriest.

"I wondered when you were going to remember me," Severus drawled.

"Hermione didn't exactly consult us before taking custody of you," Harry said. "To say we were surprised to find a Death Eater in our basement is perhaps an understatement."

"Former Death Eater," Severus replied lightly. "And you, of all people, should know where I really stand on that."

Harry shifted uncomfortably under the weight of his gaze. Severus had spent years practicing that sardonic glare - it was nice to see the time hadn't been wasted.

"But what are we supposed to _do_ with you?" Ron asked. "I mean, Hermione explained that you can't do magic, but she also said that if you run away, she'll be tried as an accessory to your crimes against wizardry."

Severus smiled coldly. "You think I'm the kind of man to run?"

"No." Hermione looked from him to her friends and back. "Ron, you're being ridiculous. Professor Snape has nowhere to go-"

"Doesn't mean he won't seek out his Death Eater friends at the first chance he gets," Ron grumbled.

"-And also," she continued, ignoring him, "I'm in control of his collar." She raised her wand and a thick silver chain appeared, connecting the tip of her wand to a loop at the front of Severus's collar. She jerked the wand lightly, and it was like a fishhook had affixed itself to his neck. Severus was powerless to fight back - the chain towed him inexorably forward toward her wand, until he caught up against it and the tip of the wand was poking him in the throat. He tried leaning back, pulling against the irresistible force, but the collar just tightened and refused to budge.

It was a strange sensation. And . . . confusing. Severus felt a stirring underneath his robes which he hadn't indulged in ages. Something about the smooth bite of the leather against his neck, or the mahogany-haired witch who was eyeing him dispassionately . . . he swallowed hard and prayed his unsettled composure wasn't immediately obvious to his former students.

Ron was still eyeing Severus with distrust. "I thought you wanted all these ingredients for yourself, Hermione," he said. "I mean, for a workroom of your own down here."

"I did. And it will be again, once Professor Snape is no longer staying here. But for right now, we need him. We need whatever he remembers, Ron."

"Hate to say it, but she's right," said Harry. "The ministry will stumble across copies of most of the books lost at Hogwarts eventually, I'm sure, but it will take ages - and there's still a lot of cleaning up after Voldemort to do in the meantime. We don't have time to wait."

"I'm standing right here," Severus grumbled.

"Only because Hermione saved your life," Ron said. "And called in a stupid _blood debt_. Honestly, Hermione, was that really necessary?"

"Yes." She glared at all three of them, daring them to contradict her. "It was, and it's my decision, not yours, and if you don't like it you can . . . you can just go live somewhere else, that's what!"

"It's my house," Harry muttered.

"You too," she snapped at him. "I mean it. This is _important_. And I didn't consult you because I shouldn't have to - you should know what it means for Hogwarts and the rest of the wizarding world."

Harry and Ron traded a significant look, then both moved to envelop her in a brotherly hug. "I'm sorry, Hermione," Harry said. "Of course you're right."

Ron stepped back and shot Severus a glare which made it clear his feelings were less flexible. "Can we leave him tied up, at least? I don't like the idea of Hogwarts' worst Headmaster roaming around our house while we sleep."

"Sure, why not?" Severus cut in. "I don't need my hands anyway. Will you be feeding me my supper then, Mr. Weasley? I'd really like to use the loo - will you assist me there, too?"

Hermione made an exasperated noise and reached for his bound hands. Severus felt the tip of her wand nudge between his wrists, then the ropes fell away and he was free to massage the raw places where the rope had dug into his wristbones. "Thank you," he murmured.

"So - supper." Hermione was trying to make her voice sound bright. "The casserole should be just about done cooling - I took it out of the oven about ten minutes ago. Ron, could you please get out the plates and so forth? Harry, I just refilled the ice trays this morning, so there should be plenty. And Professor Snape -" She pointed her wand at the bed and muttered an incantation. The silver chain lengthened and lept from the tip of her wand to fasten itself around the bed's leg - which, Severus noted, was bolted tightly to the stone floor. "I'll bring you a plate in a little while. I did some reading - the chain is magical, obviously, but it should lengthen automatically to allow you access to this whole room and the lavatory just past the workbenches. It will retract if you attempt to go up the stairs or escape." She paused and frowned. "I don't know how quickly or violently it does that, though, so please don't go trying it and get yourself hurt."

Severus fought back his instinctive reaction - _what, chained like an animal?_ - and forced his expression into neutrality. "Is this really necessary, Miss Granger? I thought you said you trusted me not to escape."

"I do," she said. And spent a long moment searching for something in his face. "I promised, though. And I can't afford to have you deciding to take things into your own hands."

And with that, once again, the three ex-students clomped back up the staircase and Severus was left alone in the basement. At least this time he could use the loo.


	4. Chapter 4

The magic, Severus learned, was both fast and brutal. He finished his business in the lavatory (which, he was gratified to find, housed a rather spacious bathing chamber and vanity sink in addition to the necessary) and determined to at least test the limits of the anti-magic collar's range. The window was both too narrow to escape through and too dusty to bother with even if he had been so inclined, so Severus decided the easiest way to test the chain was just to see how far he could get up the stairs.

The answer was not at all. Even though the stairs were practically next to the bed - far closer than the lavatory had been - the chain was unforgiving. One moment Severus was standing on the stone floor peering up the staircase, one foot raised above the lowest stair, and the next he was being towed backward by his neck to fetch up flat on the lumpy mattress. The collar tightened enough that Severus had to consciously focus on breathing for several minutes, at which point the chain abruptly went slack and he was able to sit up again.

_Well that's interesting_. Severus resolved to test the magic-suppressing properties of the collar the next chance he got, too. In the name of academics, of course. Not that anyone was likely to give him a wand anytime soon, but still . . . He wondered whether the collars were standard-issue at the ministry for prisoners housed outside Azkaban, or whether there were actually any other prisoners outside Azkaban at all. And if they were standard issue, who had designed them?

He had come up with four or five names for a short list of potential inventors in his head when Hermione came back down the stairs. This time she was alone and bearing a large bowl of what smelled like chicken and broccoli casserole. Severus sat up on the bed and prepared to look accusingly bored.

But there was no need. Hermione handed him the bowl with a small smile and sat down on the bed next to him. She searched his face, then looked down and started smoothing out her robe. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry about the chain."

He studied the back of her head (the only part of it he could see at the moment) as he mechanically took a few bites of the casserole. The casserole wasn't half bad, actually - he wouldn't have pegged Hermione Granger for a good cook, but then she must have had experience during her months on the run. And now she was sticking her neck out for him, never mind that his neck was still the one with the anti-magic collar. _What is she about?_

Severus debated a moment, but decided a frontal assault would be the best - no use hiding behind his practiced sneer, since it rarely seemed to faze her anyway. And she had matured since he had seen her last, when she was one of his students. Although she still called him "Professor" . . .

_To hell with subtlety_. "What will you need me to do so I can get my magic back?" he asked.

Hermione stopped picking at her robe and exhaled slowly. "I don't know, to be honest." She darted a sideways glance at him through the curtain of her hair. "I believe that you were on Dumbledore's side to the end -"

"Because I was," he mumbled.

"- but the ministry doesn't, and they were eager to throw you in Azkaban until they got around to giving you a trial, however long that might take. Even without the dementors, you don't want anything to do with that place. I don't give a fig for your blood debt, Professor Snape, but I decided I had to use it to save you from there."

Severus swallowed. "Thank you for that, then."

She ducked her head back down again, but not before he could see the reddening of her cheeks. _Interesting_.

"So I'm a prisoner in your basement indefinitely?" he prodded.

Her shoulders slumped. "I don't know. I don't know, all right?" She raised her head and pinned him with a bright glare. "I thought, maybe . . . if we work fast . . . we could come up with a cure for the werewolf problem, and they'll be more inclined to let you go."

Severus felt his lips compress into a thin smile. "And what do you get out of this, Miss Granger?"

You. Her lips didn't move, but the thought radiated from her brain. _I get you_. Severus shoved another bite of chicken casserole in his mouth to fill the obvious pause in the conversation, but belatedly realized he had taken too much on his fork. Several seconds of coughing and choking later, the tension had eased and the moment passed. _And yet_ . . .

Severus was suddenly, uncomfortably aware that Hermione Granger was no longer a child. It wasn't just the matter of her age - although even as an adult she was still young enough to be his daughter - but she had changed a lot in that final year before Voldemort was defeated. She held her head higher than she had before, for one thing, and she looked him in the eye without hiding. At least, when he wasn't glaring or sneering at her. Severus didn't want to think about how that sneer seemed to have become a habit for him.

And physically - well, wizarding robes weren't particularly made to be form-fitting, but it was obvious that this particular witch had filled out more than adequately. Even her face was leaner, more feminine . . . Severus mentally shook himself. He wasn't exactly in a position to be thinking about her like that, really. Not while he was stuck like this. If she reciprocated, though, would it work to his advantage? The Slytherin part of him was weighing the likelihood of scaring her versus intriguing her, if he were to insinuate even mild interest. He finally came down on the side of "probably intrigued." _Right, then_.

There was just one problem: Severus hadn't the first idea how to flirt. It had never been particularly necessary - not since his own Hogwarts days, at least. And to deliberately flirt with a witch half his age, a witch who was too smart for her own good, who reminded him of himself in too many uncomfortable ways . . .

"We'll work together, then?" he finally asked once he had finished his oversized bite of casserole.

She smiled, a genuine smile this time. "It's not exactly the internship I had hoped to ask for, but . . . yes, that's my plan. We don't have to start with anti-werewolf potions, of course - it's just, there's so much lost . . ." Her gaze flickered over to the workbench. "I was hoping you would be willing to help me write down as many of your potion recipes as you can recall. I know some of them are pretty basic, first- and second-year potions every witch and wizard should know already, but -" She took a deep breath. "I hope to write a new book."

Severus raised an eyebrow and waited for the explanation.

She glanced at him, saw his face, licked her lips - and immediately his attention was drawn to her mouth. And started wondering . . .

"You'd be the primary author, of course," she continued, "but I want to help compile it. All your recipes. What with all the turmoil, I'm sure you're one of the best potions experts left in England -"

"I was the best before the war, too, in case you were curious."

"- Yes, well, I think a book would be useful and you could sell it." She smiled at him again. "Being a household name for your role in bringing down Voldemort won't hurt, either."

It seemed like a perfectly reasonable plan to Severus, especially since it appeared he'd be spending quite a bit of time in this damned basement in the near future. And it did beat Azkaban. But if he could convince Hermione to take it even further, perhaps he'd win a bit more freedom. And lose the blasted collar.

"Speaking of books . . ." Severus kept his face deliberate open, unthreatening. "Seeing as you intend to keep me down here indefinitely, could I get something to read? Preferably several somethings, obviously, but I'd settle for the blasted _Prophet _right now so I don't have to just count cracks in the wall whenever you're not with me."

"Oh!" She reddened. "I didn't think - I'm sorry - what do you need? I can look for something upstairs."

Severus looked around the narrow room and thought. "A bookshelf would be nice. A nightstand, maybe. And, if it's not too much trouble, a change of robes or two? If I can't cast _scourgify_, I really would rather not have to wear the same clothes every day from now on. I have a few personal items from Hogwarts, at least, so I have a toothbrush and such for now." It felt like it should be odd to be discussing personal items like toothbrushes with her, but somehow it . . . wasn't.

Hermione stood and strode to the base of the stairs. "I'll go find you a book for this evening, and we'll see about everything else - and starting on potions - tomorrow."

_And before she leaves again_ - "I don't suppose you can take this collar and chain off me, can you?"

She paused. "I can't, Professor Snape. I'm sorry. The collar is on orders from the ministry, and the chain - well, I promised Ron. It was unfair of me not to tell him about you, anyway."

Severus caught himself before his habitual glower settled in to a full-on sneer. "I think you just like seeing me like this."

A ghost of a smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. "Kind of, I'll admit." She raised her wand and twirled it in the air. The motion worked like a ratchet, pulling Severus's collar inexorably toward her by several inches. His mouth went dry.

"You're just lucky it's me who did the spell and not Ron or Harry - they'd keep you chained to the bed for good." And she let him go before heading up the stairs.

_Damn_.


	5. Chapter 5

Figured I'd post a few chapters at once and get to the good stuff :-D I did mention this story is rated M, right? . . .

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She had no books, as it turned out.

"How can you live in a house with no books in it?" Severus demanded, but Hermione just shrugged.

"We only moved in two days ago - cut me some slack, Professor. I've got three boxes of books around somewhere, but they haven't made it here yet. I'll send Ron shopping in the morning. I did bring you a pen and paper, if you want to make a list of any ingredients you think we'll need or any specific books you want Ron to look for - not likely to find anything particularly esoteric, not on short notice, but he can give it a shot."

And so Severus was left alone in the basement, collared and chained (albeit on a retractable leash) to the bed, with only a pen and paper to entertain himself. _Well, not_ only _pen and paper_, he realized. There were other things . . .

It was a bit of an annoyance to get into the bathtub with the magical chain extending over the side of the tub and out the door, but Severus made do. The tap ran reasonably hot, there were a nice variety of soaps and shampoos (nicked from muggle hotels, he suspected, based on the labels), and - most importantly - it gave him enough privacy for a good wank.

He didn't indulge himself often, not really, but in the absence of a better sex life, it was an acceptable stopgap measure. Severus tried not to think too hard about why he felt compelled to do it now.

_But you know exactly why - she has thick mahogany hair, intelligent eyes, and she holds your leash. More or less literally_. Severus groaned as he lowered himself into the water. He really didn't want to examine why Hermione Granger was having this much of an effect on him, when it had been years (decades?) since he physically reacted to any witch this strongly. Not since Lily, honestly. He palmed his cock and thumbed idle circles over the tip. Lily . . . she had single-handedly provided wanking material for most of his teen years. Or rather, he had one-handedly wanked through his teen years while she was off snogging Potter, of all people, but it worked out the same in the end. There had been a few memorable one-night-stands since then, mostly during the summers when Hogwarts was closed and he was free to travel, but the rest of the time he usually managed to ignore his cock and focus on more important things. It was odd, not having anything else to do.

Ah, there it was - the familiar feeling of his body finally figuring out he was going to go through with it this time. Severus slid lower in the tub and let the heat of the water get his blood flowing - well, the water and a firmer grip. His mind wandered back to waking up naked in the infirmary at Hogwarts, Hermione eagerly watching him. Even in such a clinical setting, something about her _earnestness _had been doing things to his groin under that damned thin sheet. It better have been thick enough to hide him.

In his mind's eye, he envisioned a different version of the story - one where they were alone, and there wasn't a sheet in the way. One where Hermione ran her eyes, and then her hands, up and down his naked body, then smiled that sly half-smile she'd flashed when he accused her of liking him chained up -

He had his head thrown back against the wall of the tub, now, eyes closed, his hand moving faster, with just the right pressure learned after years of perfecting his technique. He thought about Hermione learning over him, ducking down to lick his nipples with her tongue. He pinched his nipple with his free hand, the twinge of pain ratcheting the tension in his groin up higher. And in his fantasy, Hermione climbed up on the bed to straddle him, pulling her robes back to show him she wore nothing under them, no knickers, nothing, just smooth skin and a mahogany nest of hair and hidden under it, a waiting heaven of heat and _fuck yes_ she'd slide herself onto him and since he was supposed to be too injured to be out of bed, she'd do the work, rising and falling, their joining hidden by her loose robes but obvious to anyone who might happen to wander in and _bloody hell, Hermione_ -

A sound at the door made him turn his head, but it was too late. He came in a surging rush, even as Hermione stood in the doorway with her eyes and mouth perfect matching "O"s of surprise. There was no way he could pretend she hadn't seen it, not with her clear view into the tub, not with - dear lord, had he said her name out loud? The stunned look on her face suggested yes.

Severus was still breathing hard. He swallowed, keeping his eyes on her face. He felt strangely reluctant to let go of his cock, not with her watching, not that his hand was particularly shielding anything from her view . . . mechanically he forced his hand to open and sluice off the slick white mess into the cooling bathwater.

"I, ah . . . I found you a book," Hermione said quietly.

"Thank you." Severus wasn't sure he approved of the blank look on her face. "Miss Granger -"

"I should get back upstairs," she said quickly, backing out of the doorway.

"Miss Granger, stop." He surged out of the bathtub after her, sloshing water on the floor in his haste. "Just - give me a minute to get dressed and wait out there for me, please? We obviously need to talk."

Severus dressed faster than he thought possible without using magic, praying she had listened to him. This was going to be an awkward conversation, no matter what, but it would be infinitely preferable to confront it now - just the two of them - than to have to find a way to work what just happened into a conversation later. He pulled on his robe, not bothering with shoes or socks or anything else underneath it, and charged back into what he was beginning to think of as his bedroom.

Hermione was sitting on the bed, studiously avoiding his eyes. The book she'd brought was on his pillow.

Severus slowed his steps and opted to sit at the other end of the bed, as much space between them as possible. She didn't look angry, at least.

"Miss Granger, I'm sorry. That was . . . embarrassing for both of us, I'm sure."

She grimaced. "The door was open, but it was my fault for walking in on you without knocking. It's not like I couldn't tell you were in there by the chain stretching across the room."

Severus cleared his throat. "Did I - did it offend you?"

She shifted her weight on the bed. "Not . . . not like you think, I guess. It's just, I never . . . _damn it_." She looked up and met his gaze. "I had a bit of a crush on you during my last few years at Hogwarts, all right? More than a bit. And of course I couldn't say anything to anyone about it, since you were my professor and all, and you were _Snape_, but . . . yeah, that was weird to watch." She blushed. "And to hear."

"Miss Granger . . ." Severus chose his words carefully. "This isn't Hogwarts, and you're not my student anymore. I'm not saying that because I'm trying to make a move on you, I'm just saying - this is an awkward situation. I'm a man, and I sometimes think and do things that men do, even things you don't normally associate with your professors." He dared a tight smile. "I do regret that you saw something you didn't want to, but I'm not apologizing for the act itself. If you're going to be keeping a real live wizard chained in your basement, there will be some uncomfortable moments to live through. For me more than you, I think."

She returned the smile hesitantly. "I'm not that naive, Professor. I lived on the run with Harry and Ron for months, for God's sake - I practically had to schedule time every afternoon to be out of the tent so they could each have their daily wank in private."

"And you could have yours?" Severus didn't know where the comment came from, but he felt the urge to needle her, at least a bit -

And he was rewarded by her blush spreading brilliantly across her cheeks. "I did say I had a crush on you, didn't I?" she murmured.

For possibly the first time in his life, Severus couldn't think of a thing to say. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

"So now we're even," she continued, pretending to be oblivious to his sudden fish impression. "I'm not offended that you were thinking about me, and now you know I've done my share of thinking about you too. And now we can ignore all of this -"

He cut her off with a kiss, closing the distance between them as if he had apparated. He could feel the shock in her posture, taste the surprised gasp against his lips, but then her spine softened and she kissed him back, molding her body against his and returning as good as she got. Her tongue sparred with his, sending shivers through him and obliterating any thoughts he might have had of further speech.

Severus was the one to pull back, ages later, fighting to extricate himself from the sensations swamping him. He hadn't actually kissed anyone in . . . it had definitely been years, he decided. They were both breathing hard. And he was hard elsewhere, as well.

"That was . . ." Hermione dragged a finger across her lips and looked up at him with curiosity in her eyes. "You kiss almost exactly how I dreamed you would."

Her observation struck him mute all over again. All he could do was stare, watching her hand come up and cup his cheek. "I'm not going to press," she breathed, "because as long as you're still the ministry's prisoner, I know you're not really free to leave and that wouldn't be right. But as you said, this isn't Hogwarts, and I'm not your student anymore. So next time you take a bath, if you want me there to watch - or help - I'm not inclined to say no."

Severus swallowed hard, his adam's apple making the collar rise and dip. Hermione let her hand slip down from his cheek to trace the skin just above the leather. "I do rather like you in this, by the way."

He was powerless to stop her from dropping her hand, rising to her feet, and going back upstairs. And for once, the chain had nothing to do with him being rooted to the spot.


	6. Chapter 6

Severus woke up the next morning to the sound of voices in the kitchen overhead. Ron sounded a bit more tractable after a night's sleep (and a chance to get accustomed to his former potions master living in the basement). Harry interjected a few curt words, but mostly it was Hermione's chipper monologue keeping the conversation afloat. Severus wondered what they were discussing so thoroughly.

He would have liked to say his years working simultaneously for both Dumbledore and Voldemort had bled him of the tendency to get anxious when forced to wait. He would have been lying, he discovered. Nearly an hour later, when Harry and Ron had long since left the kitchen and Hermione finally came downstairs, Severus had replayed the previous night's conversation in his head so many times he had nearly convinced himself Hermione was coming to tell him she was sending him to Azkaban.

She was cheerful when she finally came down, though, which brought him up short. She also carried a tray with juice, tea, the largest Belgian waffle Severus had ever seen, and an enormous bowl of cut fruit. She set the tray on the bed next to him. "Here. Eat. I'll be right back."

In the absence of anything better to do, Severus ate. He would have preferred his tea with a bit of sugar, but it was tolerable enough straight, and the warmth did help settle his nerves. The door at the top of the stairs opened, and then Hermione emerged again at the head of a peculiar procession of furniture. Severus couldn't help but be impressed at her charms work as a bookshelf, bedside table, filing cabinet, dilapidated desk, and white wicker chair all floated down the stairway gently, rotated themselves into the proper orientation, and lowered themselves into positions around the room.

"You can move them around later if you want to," Hermione said while straightening the desk, "but this is a start. Most of it was furniture abandoned by the previous owners of this house when they left."

Severus cleared his throat. "It should do nicely. Thank you."

"I forgot to ask how you like your tea."

"With a little sugar, usually, but Miss Granger - you don't have to make tea for me."

Hermione waved off his bewilderment. "It's not like I did it by hand, Professor - and I'm not about to insist that you make tea for the rest of us. I don't want to make you feel like a slave here."

"You could, you know," Severus replied quietly. He wanted to grab her hand, wanted to draw her down to sit next to him, but refrained. "I mean to say, the blood debt and the ministry's terms would make it entirely reasonable for you to treat me like a house-elf if you wanted to. Expected, even." He settled for fiddling with his fork instead. "Why didn't you?"

Hermione sighed and sat in the wicker chair, scooting it closer to the bed where he was sitting. "I'm not even a fan of treating house-elves like house-elves, Professor."

_I should have remembered that_. Severus felt a whisper of regret that he might have struck a sore spot. "I'm sorry - I had forgotten."

"Yes, well, a lot of things get forgotten during a war." She flashed him a sad smile. "I know now that the whole house-elf issue is more complicated than I originally suspected, but I don't think I'll ever be entirely comfortable with the idea. I can't quite bring myself to believe that anyone would _like_ being enslaved."

The collar suddenly felt tight, and Severus fought to hide showing any reaction. He had spent most of the night tossing and turning on the thin mattress, trying to get comfortable despite the leather and metal encircling his neck, and sometime during the wee hours of the morning he had finally come to the conclusion that he actually rather liked the feel of the leather against his skin. There was a lot more to it than that - the memory of Hermione reeling him in by his collar still made his cock twitch - but Severus wasn't entirely ready to face that reality quite yet.

Still, Hermione seemed inclined to let him keep as much of his dignity as possible, and he was grateful to her for that. This whole experience, the simple fact that the Dark Lord was _gone_, was new and a bit confusing. Severus didn't know when he had gotten so resistant to change - sometime during his long years at Hogwarts, where not even the superficial decorations changed except for at Yuletide - but he was quite sure he didn't like it. And not sure why. His dignity had always been one thing he could fall back on, though, and it was comforting to know she didn't seek to strip that from him. Despite the necessity of the collar.

_Merlin's ears, I've gone maudlin_. Severus shook away the memories. The only way he'd keep any control over their interaction whatsoever was to retreat into sarcasm - Hermione didn't cower from him the way some of his other students had, but he knew he had hurt her on many occasions. He tried not to think about how much that bothered him.

And yet she was still watching him, expecting some reaction. So he said the one thing he could think of to put her off-balance. "I might."

She blinked.

"I was thinking of calling you 'Mistress' from now on," he continued. _In for a penny, in for a pound?_ "Isn't that the traditional term of endearment in relationships like ours?"

Hermione stared at him. "Our . . . relationship?"

Severus ran a long fingertip along the base of his anti-magic collar. "You put me in this, you chain me to the bed, you restrict me to living in your basement, we've both admitted to gaining our own pleasure while thinking of the other . . . shouldn't I call you Mistress?"

He expected the blush he saw creeping up her neck. He expected her to stutter, apologize, turn away. He didn't expect her to bite her lip and to eye his lap like she was seriously considering his comments as a proposal. And although he didn't expect his body to respond instantly, standing to attention under her gaze, he probably should have.


	7. Chapter 7

Hermione stood up. Slowly. Her gaze never strayed from Severus's lap, where he was frantically wishing his robes did more to hide the state of his growing erection. She didn't look repulsed by his sarcastic suggestion - far from it, in fact. She looked like she wanted to take him up on it.

_How the hell did that happen?_ He hadn't wanted her to assume he was serious! . . . _Except for the part of you that did_, a voice inside him whispered. Severus desperately tried to think of something else to say, some way of cutting her back to size and embarrassing her for thinking he ever actually _meant_ any of it, but he kept drawing a blank.

And then Hermione was looming over him as he sat there on the edge of the bed, her wand in her hand. Severus forced himself to keep his eyes steadily on hers. Which meant that when she sank down slowly onto his lap, knees on either side of his hips, he could see every nuance of expression crossing her face. And when she ground her pelvis down on his and his composure finally broke and he took in a fractured breath, she could see every nuance of expression on his own.

He fought to keep his voice from cracking, a cruel flashback to his teenage years. "Miss Granger -"

"I thought we decided on Mistress," she interrupted. She touched the tip of her wand to the back of the collar and Severus felt the magical chain connecting him to the bed disappear, replaced by a much shorter one connecting him to the wand. And even though she held her wand lightly, its position was absolute - there was no give at all. He could pull as hard as he wanted, but the chain drained all the movement out before it could make her hand so much as quiver. It was, to put it bluntly, a fucking phenomenal sensation. _Add that to the list of things I don't want to think too closely about._

"Say 'Yes, Mistress.'" One corner of her mouth twisted into a sardonic smile Severus recognized as an eerie copy of his own signature smirk. But he couldn't - couldn't acknowledge it, not quite yet. Couldn't speak at all as he processed the amazing feeling of Miss Hermione Granger pinning his legs down and riding his lap. He started to shift, raised one knee up and out from under her -

"None of that!" Hermione twisted her wand away from his collar and pointed at his feet. "_Serodus pediodam!_" She bounced her weight backward a fraction, knocking his feet back to the floor, where they stuck fast. It wasn't a spell he had ever heard before, and Severus had a passing urge to find out whether she had found it in a book or just invented it herself - but then the thought was knocked clean from his head when she settled herself back onto his hips and rocked herself forward into him. He let out a groan.

"Reluctant to say it?" She leaned in close, nearly touching her nose to his. She smelled like jasmine and lilac. "You were so keen to shock me a minute ago . . . do you want me to stop?"

Severus met her eyes, saw the sincerity and the hunger there. She truly wanted this from him, wanted him to call her his mistress, wanted him to . . . _submit?_ He licked his lips. "No - don't stop."

She rewarded him with another pelvic undulation which had him practically ready to spill right there, never mind his wank not twenty-four hours earlier. Severus reached for her, preparing to kiss her senseless and maybe regain a modicum of control -

"None of that either," she chided playfully. "In fact . . ." She touched the wand to his collar again, no chain in between this time, and slowly lowered her wand to the bed behind him. Severus had no choice but to follow, laying back on the lumpy mattress, now restrained only by the collar at his neck and the spell holding his feet to the floor. And Hermione sitting on his lap, occasionally grinding against him. He shifted his hips up experimentally and won a startled gasp from her lips.

She recovered quickly. Her eyes met his - and she very deliberately left the wand lying on the bed, mingled with his hair, point still touching his collar. Severus was pinned to it just as surely as if she had been holding it. It occurred to him that he could try to grab it, see whether this anchoring spell was _her_ or just the wand, but there were other things he preferred to get his hands on.

Such as her waist as she moved against him. Severus let his fingers trail up from her knees to her thighs, then upward to settle around her hips as she gyrated. Her eyes never left his - and they were so full of fire . . . Hermione's hands fluttered up to her neckline, to the zipper at the front of her robes. She started to draw the zipper down, pull the fabric back -

"Yes, let me see . . ."

His words, perversely, made her stop. "No, I don't think so." She stopped after only a few inches, just a hint of tantalizing skin showing in the triangle she had bared. Although it might as well have been racy lingerie, given the effect it was having on Severus's heart rate.

"You're going to kill me," he choked out.

"Far from it," she replied with a smile. Her eyes raked down his body. "I'm going to go first. I think, as your Mistress, I should always get to go first, no? And after you've satisfied me, then perhaps I'll let you take your release too."

Severus had never thought of himself as a particularly perverted man. He never lusted after students, never watched men, never sought out the darker variety of erotic pleasures Knockturn Alley offered for discerning witches and wizards who knew what they wanted. But the thought of getting Hermione off over and over until she was thoroughly satisfied before she allowed him to reach his own climax, letting her take control of his orgasm in that way - it gave him a very literal shiver down his spine. _Yes. That is what I want_.

And yet he couldn't bring himself to say the word "mistress" aloud again.

So he tried his best to show her. She wanted to keep her robe on, so Severus skimmed his hands up her body - over her robe - and closed them over her breasts. The collar held him pinned flat to the mattress, so she had to learn forward a bit to let him reach. It felt like she was providing him with twin gifts, hidden behind the drape of her robes, but tantalizingly soft to the touch underneath the fabric. He played, gently at first, but then more confidently as she sighed and leaned into him further. He could feel a bra, of some sort, but it wasn't padded and it didn't obscure the softness of her skin . . .

"I'm taking your robe off now," she announced abruptly, and did so. She wasn't able to get it entirely off him, not while he was effectively chained to the bed and lying on it, but she unzipped the front and brushed the two halves to the sides, baring his chest and stomach to the cool air. Severus half expected her to recoil at the sight - he knew the scars on his torso were embarrassingly visible - but then she touched him with a gentle hand and he knew he was lost.

Her fingers swept up, all the way to the collar, and she traced one fingertip along the dark leather edge above his collarbone. And then those fingers traced downward, dragging across his nipple, crossing over the scars without pause, and flitted across the skin of his stomach. Severus sucked in his breath and tried to ignore the fluttering, needy sensation she generated.

"Mine. All this is mine." She looked back up, making sure he could see the possessiveness in her eyes. "I want to be able to touch you like this whenever I please. Say "Yes, Mistress, I'm yours.'"

_Yes, Mistress_. But he still couldn't say it.

She paused, waiting for his response. When it didn't come, her hands drifted downward, and in one smooth motion she lifted up onto her knees and pulled Severus's drawers down to hug his thighs. Severus gasped as his erection sprang sprang free. Hermione didn't immediately sit back down, though - she stayed kneeling over his thighs, devouring his body with her gaze. His erection twitched at the attention.

"You're going to say it before you come," she declared. And Severus didn't doubt it. Hermione claimed both his hands in hers, her palms warm against the backs of his fingers, and repositioned his hands so he had a palm on each of her thighs. Then she tugged her robe backwards, out from under his palms, and he was touching her bare skin underneath her robes.

Merlin alive, it was heaven. Hermione scooted forward to give him better access, which incidentally placed her core directly over his aching erection. Severus nudged upward, seeking relief, but hit the barrier of her undergarments.

"You haven't called me your Mistress yet," she said in a low voice. "Right now I want you to just use your hands."

So he did. And despite his relative lack of practical experience, Severus could tell he was using them well. He let his hands tell him about the body under her robe even though his eyes couldn't - the swell of her breasts, the feel of her ribcage, the shape of her derriere underneath her simple cotton underwear. She reacted beautifully to each touch, each caress - there was no subterfuge on her face when she quivered under his ministrations. And finally, when he ran one long finger around to the front of her panties and dipped it inside to tease her soft core, she keened and came apart in his arms.

He was so hard he could barely stand it - and yet the feel of Hermione quivering and then collapsing bonelessly on top of him was welcome in some other way, some not-related-to-his-cock feeling of satisfaction. Severus brought his arms around her and stroked her back while her breathing returned to normal.

"God, it's been too long," she groaned, her voice coming from somewhere in the vicinity of his left ear. And then her lips closed over his earlobe, and Severus nearly expired on the spot. He vaguely recognized the strangled noise he was making as something of a plea.

"Say it - ask me to let you come," Hermione whispered into his ear. And her tongue and lips touched the shell of his ear in a way that had him harder than he'd ever been in his life. He drove his hips upward into hers, seeking her heat, but she bucked away with a laugh. "No, not until you say it. In fact - hmmm." She sat up and eased off to sit beside him. "I think you're going to help me make you come. _After_ you admit this is what you want."

Severus opened his eyes and locked his gaze on her face - but she was looking down lower, at where his cock was feeling more sensitive than it had ever been. Her hand ghosted over him, not actually touching his skin, but his skin tingled as if she had.

"Tell me you want to come."

"I want to come," he moaned.

She speared a sharp look at his face. "I want to come, _Mistress_."

Severus opened his mouth to argue - he was so desperate -

Hermione grabbed his hand and placed it on his cock, then enveloped his hand with her own. "Show me what you like."

And Merlin help him, he tried. She kept her hand over his as he palmed himself and started working up and down. It didn't take long - he was so damn on edge -

"_Say it_." Her hand tightened over his, preventing him from those last few strokes he needed so badly -

"I want to come, Mistress!" he pleaded.

And the smile that broke over her face was a joy to behold. She released his hand and slid her own down beside it, molding over him with just the right amount of pressure, her fingers dainty against his sensitive skin. One stroke, two, and then he came so hard he saw stars. She kept her hand on him the whole time, gently milking every last sensation out of him, before she stood and zipped her robe up the rest of the way.

Severus couldn't speak, could barely think. All he could do was to lie there on the bed and marvel at her. She hiked up her robes and crawled onto the mattress next to him, brushing his hair out of the way. She reached down and retrieved her wand, breaking the anchoring spell with a quick twist and a muttered spell before waving a second spell in the direction of his feet. He felt no inclination to move yet, though, even if he now could.

"_Scourgio_." Severus felt a tingle spread across his stomach as the mess of ejaculate disappeared. Hermione trailed feminine fingertips over his chest once more, then tugged gently at the gaping edges of his robe. "Sit up and get dressed. We have potions to make."


	8. Chapter 8

They fell into an odd sort of relationship in the weeks that followed. Severus nearly always called her "Mistress" now, but he was careful to always say it with a mocking note in his voice. Except for when she had him on the brink, straining for release - then he would happily plead with her, call her his Mistress, beg her to let him come, and he didn't give a doxy shit for what came out of his mouth at those times.

The rest of the time, they brewed potions. Everything was an awkward compromise as long as Severus couldn't do magic - he prepared all the ingredients, sorted and chopped and measured everything, but it was Hermione who had to actually add them to the cauldron and provide the proper incantations to make the potions actually potent instead of just foul-smelling muggle soups. Severus couldn't remember a time he hadn't been able to brew something properly, and it was nearly as lowering as wearing the damned collar was.

"How in the world am I supposed to powder a damn opal without magic?" Severus grumbled into his mortar and pestle one morning. Hermione was sitting on the desk, watching him wrestle with a rather complicated list of ingredients for an awareness-enhancing potion. The opal had been reduced to a layer of rather lumpy gravel in the bottom of the mortar, but it was stubbornly refusing to break down any further.

"You're the one who insisted my attempt wasn't good enough," Hermione said, crossing and stretching her legs. "I pulverized it that far - you can get it the rest of the way."

"That remains to be seen." He leaned hard on the pestle, putting his full body weight behind it, but once again the larger chunks of opal skittered away in the bowl and refused to turn an appropriately fine powder. "Fucking rock!"

"I'm impressed, Professor," Hermione commented. "You have an incredibly foul mouth when you're frustrated, I've learned. How did you manage to keep yourself civil all those years at Hogwarts?"

"I don't have a foul mouth." He sounded defensive even to his own ears.

"I never would have thought you did, but our time here together has been enlightening." Hermione ran her eyes over his body, blatantly ogling him. "Learned a lot of things about that mouth of yours, actually."

"Fuck off," Severus muttered.

"Eloquent as ever." Hermione leapt lightly off the desk and stalked toward him. Severus's glare seemed to be having no effect on her determination. She came right up against him, robes pressing against his, and then completely flummoxed him by tapping his nose playfully with her wand. "I bet you had a swear jar."

Severus blinked. "A what?"

"A swear jar." Hermione hopped up onto the workbench next to his mortar and pestle, leaning back on her palms and swinging her legs insolently. "You put twenty pence in it every time you swear. Supposed to help you break the habit. Never helped my Uncle Roy, but I always loved counting the twenty pence pieces in it whenever we visited his apartment."

"Oh, those." Severus pinned her with what he hoped looked like a forbidding glare. "I had one for every time I made a student cry. Except instead of putting muggle money into it, the jar was filled with sweets and I allowed myself to take one out."

Hermione grinned, and Severus had the odd feeling that his dour mood made not one whit of difference to her cheerfulness at the moment. "You must have given yourself a bellyache after most our potions classes, then," she said.

"I daresay you're right."

"Liar." She hooked her heels around the backs of his thighs and drew him forward, into the circle of her legs, so she was wrapped around him and his sudden erection was bumping the edge of the workbench. "You still have opal to powder," she reminded him. With a puckish glint in her eyes. Severus had a good idea where this was going -

"You do it." He tossed the pestle back into the mortar, where it circled twice before coming to a stop. "I'm a damned squib now, apparently."

"Make me." She slowly unzipped her robe, revealing a tantalizing line of skin running all the way down to her navel before the robes pooled in her lap and obscured the rest.

Severus's mouth went dry. "Is that an order, Mistress?"

In return, she touched her wand to his collar, shortening his chain, and forced his head downward. Severus nuzzled aside the fabric of her robe with his nose, interested only in what lay beneath -

Her wand dragged him lower, even as he was preparing to pay homage to the slit of pale skin showing the gentle curve of her stomach, until he finally relented and flicked aside the excess fabric with both hands. And discovered she wasn't wearing any undergarments - and that she was very, very ready for him to make her change her mind.


	9. Chapter 9

The other two occupants of the house didn't seem to know what to make of Severus and Hermione spending all their time in the basement. Potter at least suspected something, Severus assumed, but Weasley mostly seemed worried that Hermione wasn't paying him enough attention. _As if she would be interested in a boy like that_. Severus knew the Golden Trio had been close for their entire Hogwarts careers, knew that Hermione and Weasley had shared something more than friendship on and off for a while, but Weasley seemed completely oblivious to the fact that Hermione was miles ahead of him, maturity-wise. The tenor of their breakfast conversations never changed - Hermione chattered cheerfully, Weasley grumbled back at her, and Potter stayed mostly silent. Probably reading the paper or something equally inane.

One afternoon, nearly a month after the Battle of Hogwarts (as the _Prophet_ was calling it), Ron stomped down the stairs and interrupted Severus and Hermione in the middle of one of their potion-brewing marathons. The two of them often started out the morning with discussion over their progress from the day before, then planned out a division of tasks for the rest of the morning and the afternoon. This particular afternoon was the apex of an exhausting week, and it marked the first time they had really managed to put together what (at least in theory) might be a viable anti-werewolf potion. The ingredients list was massive, though, and it had taken both of them four whole days to chop and refine and prepare everything for the actual brewing. They took breaks, of course - quite enjoyable ones, as had become their habit - but they were close to a solution and both of them instinctively realized that their full concentration was needed.

And so it wasn't merely luck that led to Ron finding them both fully clothed and hard at work, rather than hard at another activity. Severus was drenched in sweat, having been standing near the magical flames and stirring the sludge-like potion for close to four hours without a break while Hermione added ingredients in a precisely timed order and performed the proper spells and incantations.

"Hermione?" Ron crossed the room and peered around Severus to look in the cauldron. "Hey, what's that you're working on?"

"Same we've been working on all week, Ron," Hermione answered without looking up from the runes she was tracing in the tray of powdered bicorn horn. "Didn't think to see you home in the middle of the day. Is something wrong?"

Ron cleared his throat. "No, nothing like that. I just wanted to let you know - I stopped by the Ministry today, to drop off some papers for Harry, and I overheard Kingsley Shacklebolt talking with another wizard in the elevator. He was saying that they had finally scheduled Professor Snape's hearing."

Severus froze, but caught himself and forced his arms to mechanically keep stirring the potion. "There's a date set, then?"

"A week from Wednesday." He cleared his throat again. "From what the other wizard was saying, though, it sounds like public opinion has pretty much decided the result already. Neither of them sounded like they intended to treat the hearing as more than a formality."

"I take it the wizarding public doesn't exactly adore me."

Ron backed away from the workbench and fidgeted with his wand. _Horribly dangerous habit to have_, Severus noted. "You could come out and tell your side, you know," he said. "Get an interview with the _Prophet_, an exclusive about what it was like to spy on You-Know-Who -"

"Voldemort, Ron," Hermione cut in. "Honestly, you'd think you could say his name by now."

"Sorry, habit. But it's the only thing I can think of that you could do now, Professor, to stand one jot of a chance at clearing your name and getting out of here."

Severus looked up, then, and pinned him with the glare that always seemed to come naturally when dealing with this particular Weasley. "I have no intention of sullying my name with the _Prophet_," he snapped. "I have no doubt _you_ can't think of anything else I could do, but Miss Granger and I already have it well in hand." He gestured to the cauldron. "As you can see."

"Oh. Um." Ron backed up another step, then reversed course and went to touch Hermione lightly on the shoulder. "Hermione, can I talk to you a second? In private?"

She looked at him blankly, then back down to the bicorn horn powder. "We're kind of in the middle of this, Ron . . ."

"I know. I see, but - please?"

Hermione glanced up at Severus - just a momentary glance, but he read her perfectly. _I'm only doing this because I have to_, her look said.

"You have two minutes," Severus snapped. "After that, Miss Granger needs to add the bicorn horn and start boiling the essence of murtlap."

Hermione set the pan of bicorn horn powder down carefully, so as not to disturb the runes she had just spent so much effort tracing, and indicated for Ron to follow her into the lavatory. She closed the door behind them, mostly, but the remaining crack was enough to let Severus overhear most of their conversation.

"Why do you let him do that to you?" Ron was asking. "You'd think, in his situation, he'd be the _last_ one to be giving orders -"

"You know _nothing_ about his situation, Ron!" she exclaimed. "Imagine you spent _decades_ having to listen to Voldemort, doing just enough of what he demanded to avoid being _killed, killing your own best friend_, and then _finally_ when it all pays off and Voldemort is defeated, you're stripped of your magic and left to rot in Azkaban because some people - many being students you yourself taught - are too _stupid_ to understand that maybe, possibly, you and Dumbledore knew what you were doing. And that the two of you were smarter than Voldemort and the rest of the wizarding world put together. Imagine that for a minute, Ron, and then tell me why I should leave him here in the basement without ever coming down to see him - or beyond that, why I should turn him over to Azkaban to wait for the decision they already made anyway."

A whining note threaded into Ron's voice. "I'm sorry, Hermione. I really am. I'm just worried about you spending so much time down here, with _him_ - we hardly ever see each other anymore." A silence and a vague shuffling of robes, during which Severus imagined Weasley was trying to capture Hermione's hand in a grand dramatic gesture. "I had always hoped, after the war was over, that you and I -"

Hermione's answer was too low for Severus to make out her words, but it was obvious from her tone that she wasn't pleased. He responded in kind, and their hissed dialogue continued until Severus had had enough.

"Miss Granger, the bicorn horn, if you please?"

Hermione opened the door immediately, leaving Weasley to trail behind her as she returned. "That's the only answer you're going to get from me, Ron. We can talk more tonight, but for right now . . ." She cast a quick stasis charm over the runes, then gently extracted the block of powder from the tray and lowered it into the sludgelike potion in Severus's cauldron. "I have work to do. I'm sorry."

Severus didn't need to look to know Weasley didn't like that answer - his childish stomping as he climbed the stairs said it all.


	10. Chapter 10

"I take it Mr. Weasley was disappointed with the current arrangement?"

Hermione busied herself with setting up the tiny cauldron for boiling the murtlap essence, but Severus stretched out the silence until she finally broke. "I suppose it was inevitable, really," she said.

"That he get upset with you?"

"That we got sick of each other." She uncorked the vial of murtlap essence and poured it into her cauldron. "We've been friends for so long, and I'd love to be able to stay friends, but now that Voldemort is dead - I guess suddenly I'm seeing that once we don't have a common enemy, we don't have much of a common anything. But Ron is so enamored with the idea of him and me . . . I mean, yes, we snogged a few times, but I think he's jumping ahead from that to assuming I'll cook him dinner every night and pop out ten red-headed kids." She shot Severus a wry smile. "Much as I love his mother, I'm not her. I don't know if I ever want children at all, much less right away."

"All that from a few kisses." Severus didn't bother to keep the amusement from his voice.

And she heard it. "No need to get all smug, Professor. I'm not looking to have children with you, either."

"That wasn't particularly a goal of mine," he said.

"Good." She lowered the flames under her cauldron and gave the contents a perfunctory stir with her wand. "Because - as much fun as we're having with this - it would be a mistake to assume it's going to be a permanent arrangement. What do you plan to do afterward?"

_Will there even be an 'afterward?'_ It wasn't sounding likely. "I was thinking of taking a nice vacation to an island just off the coast - Azkaban is lovely this time of year, I've heard."

"_Don't_." Hermione nudged into him with her hip, pressing the length of her torso against him for a moment before moving away. "Just - don't even joke about that, please. I'm doing all this to save you from there." She waved vaguely at the rest of the room with her non-wand hand. "The Ministry is being horrible to you, and it scares me that they might succeed . . ."

Severus snaked his free arm around her waist, drawing him back to him. "Thank you," he murmured into her hair, and placed a kiss on the top of her head. "I heard you defending me. And I don't think I've ever had someone who actually bothered to do something for me before, other than Albus. All teasing aside, it . . . means more to me than I can say."

She didn't reply, just rested her head against his chest. They were both still stirring their respective cauldrons - the anti-werewolf potion was too important to screw up now - but Severus was pleased to discover he could keep one arm stirring while his brain and other arm were otherwise occupied. He gently lifted Hermione's hair out of the way, then pressed a kiss just behind her ear.

Her little gasp of breath was all the encouragement he needed to push further. He could feel the moment they both decided to make it a game - how many little kisses and caresses could they exchange without losing the rhythm of stirring? Severus nibbled on Hermione's neck, swiping his tongue in a long stroke just above her collarbone where she never failed to react, and he wasn't disappointed.

"Prof - Professor?"

"Another minute or so," he whispered into her hair. "And then you can add the essence of murtlap to the potion, and then we have twenty minutes to let it sit and absorb the regenerative properties of the murtlap. Any ideas for how we should use that time, hmmm?"

"If you don't stop making me shiver like that, I won't be capable of any ideas at all."

Severus reluctantly pulled away from her and checked the consistency of the sludge in his cauldron. It still felt like stirring cement. He quickly checked through the pages of notes strewn about on the workbench - evidence of a back-and-forth discussion about potion-crafting which actually rather surprised him. Oh, no doubt he was the far more experienced potioneer, but Hermione had a gift for arithmancy and she seemed to have an instinct for figuring out how to arithmantically cut to the heart of a problem and logically derive a solution. She was the one who had suggested the murtlap essence in the first place, actually, as a binding and regenerative agent, and also as a liquid which would - on a basic level - make the potion less cement-like. Severus had been toying with boiled bezoar instead, but it would have just made the potion thicker - and Hermione had quite rightly pointed out that the bezoar might have cross-reactions with some of the other ingredients in the potion before they were fully absorbed into the mix.

"Okay, now." He smashed a dent in the lump of sludge, large enough for Hermione to pour the murtlap essence into, and quickly folded the two together with his fake wand (good for stirring, useless for spells, but it felt more natural than using a wooden spoon) until everything had evened out to a gently pearlescent mixture with the viscosity of gravy. "Turn down the flame as low as it will go, please? And set the timer for twenty - make it twenty-two minutes."

He ducked into the loo while Hermione took care of the magical clean-up. His arm felt like it was on fire, after stirring for so many hours without a break, and he was a thoroughly sweaty mess. Severus wished - not for the first time - that he at least had enough magic that he could scourgify away the grime. He made do with a washcloth, quick swipes removing most of the sweat from his face and neck and arms.

"You're wasting your twenty-two minutes," Hermione called.

Severus gave himself a last once-over in the mirror, then returned and gave her a quick, hard kiss. "Still have at least twenty left," he said. "Have you decided what you want to do with me?"

Hermione conjured his magical chain and towed him by his collar back to the bed. Somehow he had let slip in the past weeks how much the damned chain turned him on, and as a result, she now almost always found an excuse to jerk him around - at least a bit. Severus wasn't complaining.

"Twenty minutes and change," she said with a glance at the magical timer suspended over the workbench. "You had better be fast."

"What -"

She silenced him with a brief kiss. "You enjoy seeing to your Mistress's needs, don't you?"

Severus nodded, his throat suddenly dry.

She smiled sweetly at him. "You're wasting time, then. I expect to have two - no, let's say three orgasms in the next twenty minutes. After that, you may come." She unzipped his robe, sluicing it off his shoulders, and tugged down his drawers. "Oh, but first, a little help." She pointed her wand at his cock and muttered a spell. Severus felt a peculiar sensation wash through him - he glanced down -

- and saw a gleaming silver cage, about a foot in diameter, imprisoning his cock and balls. He reached down to touch it, but despite the obvious holes between the magical bars, he couldn't reach so much as a fingertip through.

"So you can concentrate," she said at his baffled look. "No matter how big you get, nothing can touch your cock - not your hand, not my body, not even an accidental brush against the sheets - until I'm satisfied. But the space inside cage is linked to me, so the more aroused I get, the more you will be too." Her face broke into a truly wicked smile. "You can't come as long as it's on there, but by the time I come a third time, just breathing on you will be enough to give you the orgasm of your life."

Merlin, he was hard just listening to her explain! He wasted no time in stripping her of her robes and undergarments, so in moments the only thing between them was the cage. Severus barely suppressed a feral growl as he tackled her, pressing her down against the mattress, and began exploring her body with his mouth and his hands. She shivered and wriggled under him, squirming away when he feathered kisses against the ticklish undersides of her breasts and arching towards him when he brought his attention back to her peaked nipples.

It was a novel experience - every time he hit some particularly good spot, making her breath hitch, he felt an answering twinge in his own cock. Severus mapped her weakest points by measuring the response in his own body - a thoroughly Slytherin survey of how to break down her defenses, he realized, but also a thoroughly enjoyable one. By the time he reached the drenched core between her legs, they were both gasping. And when he pressed one long kiss over her clit and sucked gently, and she came apart beneath him, the sensations on his cock were absolutely indescribable. Severus had no doubt he would have come, too, if the spell hadn't prevented it.

"That's one," he murmured against her belly. Hermione was still breathing heavily. Severus took advantage of her lack of resistance to slide one long finger inside her. She gasped.

"You can do it," he whispered. "Come again for me." He slid a second finger in alongside the first, both drenched with the clear evidence of her enjoyment. He let his thumb circle her clit slowly, using the frissons of excitement he felt on his cock to determine the best tempo. The rhythm quickly solidified - one lazy circle, two, then a gentle undulation with his fingers inside her, pressing up against the place she never failed to gasp when he pressed -

Her second orgasm snuck up on her quickly, catching her by surprise. Hermione cried out, and Severus immediately wished he could cast a silencing charm. And hoped that neither Ron nor Harry were in the kitchen at that moment - if he could hear their voices up there, they could probably hear what was happening down here -

But no door opened, no angry footsteps down the stairs, so Severus allowed himself to relax. As much as he could, anyway - he was so ready to come it was nearly past pleasure and into pain. Although that, in itself, looped back to a strange kind of pleasure . . .

Hermione stirred and reached for him, trying to draw him up to lie against her. But -

"That was two, Mistress," he whispered. "Are you ready for a third?"

She let out a long sigh and licked her lips. "I don't know if I can -"

"Oh, but I insist." He grabbed her knickers and threaded them through the bars of the headboard, then captured her hands and twisted the knickers into a suitable substitute for handcuffs. Hermione sucked in a deep breath and tugged - they wouldn't hold her if she really wanted to break free, of course, but the warming sensation in Severus's cock told him she approved. A lot.

"Now that you're vulnerable and helpless," he breathed into her ear, "I'm going to make you come again anyway. How does it feel to be the one bound?" He nibbled on her lobe, then licked up the crease just behind her ear.

Hermione shuddered and gasped, sending a magical shock straight through Severus's core. He filed that particular spot away for later reference and glanced up at the timer - eight minutes left. Not that he really had to leave time for himself - he was certain to come his brains out the moment she removed that cage . . .

_One more_. He had time. Severus gently ran his palms from her bound hands down her arms, over her shoulders, and closed them over her breasts. She had particularly nice breasts - he suspected she was self-conscious about them, as so many witches were, but they were proportional to the rest of her and just large enough to really play with. He circled one with his nose against her soft skin before drawing the tip into his mouth. Even in her exhausted state, she couldn't suppress a tiny moan.

"You know what I dream about when I'm down here alone?" he murmured against one pebbled tip. "I dream about tying you down here on my bed, much like this, and taking my time to explore every inch of you. Learning the difference in taste between your nipples and your neck and your clit and the sensitive spot behind the backs of your knees." He sucked the nipple into his mouth and let it go again with a soft _pop_. "And you're tied up, much like this, so you can't stop me, can't do anything to prevent me from drawing it out, making you blind with need, making you beg me -"

_Zing_. He had to pause and catch his own breath as the sensation washed through his cock - _so she likes dirty talk_. Severus suppressed a purely Slytherin grin - talking and persuasion were something he was good at. Chalk up one more idea for the "things to remember" column. But first . . .

"Should I tell you what I see?" he continued. "I see a wanton witch spread out on the mattress below me, already flushed and panting after her first two orgasms. She's embarrassed - embarrassed to be seen acting this needy, to be so caught up in physical sensation that she'll do anything for another. And the longer I stare, the longer I just take in the sight of her, the more she feels like squirming." He caught her hips in a hard grip and restrained her before she could writhe away. "She's already drenched, dripping with proof that she's nothing like the good little girl she plays at being."

Hermione moaned, trying to buck her hips upward, but Severus pressed harder and forced her back into the mattress. He climbed on top of her, kneeling over her spread thighs, one shin pressing down on each of her legs and pinning her thoroughly like a butterfly in a case. He wished like hell the cage wasn't there - they were both more than ready for him to dive into her warm, waiting core . . .

"She's spread open for me, just waiting for me to take her," he said in the same even voice, not letting his own need show through in his tone. "All I have to do is to let my thumb rest here-" - he placed his thumb gently over her clit - "-and she's bucking against it." Which indeed she was. "Can my little wanton witch plead, I wonder?"

She licked her lips. "Please . . ."

Severus was on edge, ready to explode. She had to be close. "She wants me inside her, filling her." He slipped a finger into her waiting heat. "But one finger isn't enough. She's begging for more."

"Yes . . ." Her eyes were tightly closed now, and she was straining upward against his weight. Severus eased a second finger in beside the first.

"But that's not enough either," he continued. "She's praying to be filled up properly, to feel more of me inside her. Maybe one more."

She choked back a gasp as the third finger joined the other two. Severus stilled, letting her get used to the sensation for a moment. Only a moment, though (_two minutes left_ . . .) - she was so damn ready -

He dipped his head and sucked hard on one nipple, while his free hand reached out to pinch the other, and at the same time he pressed down hard on her clit with his thumb. And she just - fractured. There was no other word for it. He felt her shuddering under his lips and clenching around his fingers and the visceral shock of it flashed over his cock and he thought he would pass out from it all. He shook his head to clear it and reached for her bound hands -

But she was faster. Her hands were free in a blink, and a moment later she was wielding her wand and Severus was flat on his back on the mattress with his Mistress looming over him, pointing her wand at his cock and her magical cage, and then the cage was gone and she ran the flat of her wand up the length of his cock and oh Merlin, he _came_.

Hermione milked every last ripple out of him. Severus didn't know how long he was witless with sensation, reduced to gasping and shuddering and fuck, how did he have that much come inside him in the first place? Hermione watched every last shudder with a heavenly smile on her face, then curled up on the mattress beside him and rested her head against his shoulder.

"Okay?" she asked.

Severus turned just enough to kiss her on the forehead. "Fucking incredible."

Her face lit up, even more than just the afterglow from the sex. "I'm so glad - I've been working on that cage all week. And waiting for just the right time to show you." She brushed a strand of hair out of his face and smiled. "Did you - did you mean what you said? About wanting to see me tied up?"

Severus tried to sort back through to remember - what _had_ he said, exactly? "It's one of many things I dream about," he admitted. "Although I'll also say, I can't believe I've got the stamina to even _think_ about sex at night these days. You're keeping me thoroughly drained."

Hermione smiled again and rolled back to look at the ceiling. "Me too, I'll admit. It wasn't like this before."

Severus suddenly realized something. "You said you and Mr. Weasley had never . . ."

She snorted. "We didn't. But I did go to visit Viktor Krum the summer after the Tri-Wizard Tournament. And - well, I'll just say it was a fantastic summer."

_I can believe it_. He was the quidditch player, right? Severus thought back - he had gone to Italy that summer, he recalled, and spent some very pleasant time with a witch near Tuscany for a few weeks. At the time, he had thought it was one of the most romantic experiences possible. But now . . .

The timer rang, cutting off the conversation. Hermione kissed him on the nose. "Time to go check the potion."


	11. Chapter 11

They dressed in silence, other than Hermione's off-handed "_Scourgio!_" to clean up the mess. The murtlap essence had been the right choice - the potion was still thick, but very definitely a liquid. And the pearlescence had spread until the entire cauldron was glowing with an ever-shifting rainbow of colors.

"Last step?" Hermione asked.

"The star-thistle butter." Which had taken a full, hellish day to make, Severus remembered. Each pod was smaller than a sesame seed, and they had been obliged to shell each one individually (with magic, thank Merlin) and then separate out the seeds from the husks (manually) before they could cream the seeds into a pulp. But Hermione expertly peeled the greasy substance from the foil casing and dropped in the exact right amount, and Severus prayed all that work hadn't been for naught.

The shifting rainbows stopped abruptly and the whole potion went gray.

"Shit," Hermione said. "Was it supposed to do that?"

Severus shrugged. "We'll find out." And couldn't resist the urge to tease her. "Did you ever think of instituting a swear jar? Because I think you'd owe it something."

"Shut up, you." She nudged him with her shoulder again. "But seriously - what's next?"

"We fill some flasks, stopper them up, and find a werewolf to practice on. You did have someone lined up, didn't you? I just assumed you would."

Hermione snorted. "I do, as a matter of fact - Harry's been kind enough to talk to a few people at the Ministry and they gave him a list of names. Two pureblood children, to start with."

"Greyback's doing?"

"Their parents refused to financially support Voldemort, even when directly 'asked'. So yes."

"Damn." Severus rubbed the bridge of his nose. "The more I hear about what the Dark Lord did, the more I'm glad I only knew the half of it. I don't know how I would have been able to carry on pretending, if I had known."

"He did plenty around you, too," Hermione said quietly.

"I know." He met her eyes. "And I hate myself for not stopping it. All of it. I know logically that I couldn't, that I was doing more good in the long run to keep my own counsel and staying to the shadows, but . . . fucking hell."

Hermione reached for his hand and squeezed it. "You did what you could, Severus. We all did."

The platitude sounded empty, even from her lips. Severus squeezed back, just a tiny bit. "I know you're trying to fight for me, but honestly . . . part of me believes I belong in Azkaban. I did bad things, Hermione - I couldn't always just watch. And there was a tiny piece of me that enjoyed it, enjoyed the power - I hate that piece of myself, but it was there." He couldn't believe he was telling her this, couldn't believe he was admitting something so raw, but she deserved to know -

"Bollocks," Hermione declared, interrupting his maudlin second-guessing. "So a part of you liked being in control - that doesn't make you evil, that makes you _human_. And you weren't in control, not really - you've spent half your fucking _life_ trying to do the right thing, despite two opposite extremes trying to tell you what to do and both screwing you over for it. So don't you dare feel guilty for enjoying those few times you were able to take charge on a primal level, even if what you were doing wasn't . . . consistent with the man you wanted to be."

Severus swallowed the lump in his throat. "I don't trust myself to be in control anymore. I haven't been in charge of my own life since I was your age."

She smiled at him, then, and drew his mouth down to meet her lips in a gentle kiss. "I know," she whispered. And glanced at the bed with a caricature of a sultry pout. "Although from what I've seen, you take charge very well."

Their shared smirks turned to laughter, then to the kind of great belly laughs which aren't about laughing at all, but are about letting all your mixed-up emotions escape in one big burst. Severus grabbed her around the waist and pulled her tight against him as soon as they both had their breath back, planting a long and tender kiss on her lips. She kissed him right back, just as soundly, both of them standing there in front of the workbench and the potion they hadn't yet bothered to take out of the cauldron. Hermione waved her wand absent-mindedly at the flames, dousing them, and dove back into the kiss.

"Leave it - we can get to it later."


	12. Chapter 12

By mutual consent, they decided to bring the children and their parents to the Golden Trio's house the next evening, rather than the other way around. Hermione would have been happy to let Severus come with her to do a house call, but he felt absurdly self-conscious about the anti-magic collar around his neck. Ironic, considering how un-self-conscious he was whenever Hermione ever actually bothered to to control him with it - one tug and he could feel his resolve slipping away to some calm place where all he needed to do is to obey her and everything would be all right. And would involve sensational orgasms, more often than not, but it wasn't his responsibility to worry about that so he didn't.

They didn't even bother going through the little dance by this point - the sneering, the grumbling, the pretending they weren't both absolutely drooling for each other on a regular basis - eventually it just became a given assumption that at some point during the day, Hermione would sharpen her tone a bit and start giving orders, and Severus would follow them. She never overstepped her bounds, never tried to order him to do something he was truly uncomfortable with, and while she sometimes demanded humiliating and arduous things, she never tried to hold the memories of those humiliations over him once they were again dressed and ready to work. It was a tenuous truce, but a pleasant one.

With the experimental potion made, though, Severus found himself at loose ends for the majority of the day. Hermione had come downstairs in the morning to bring him his breakfast and to apologize for disappearing, but she needed to contact the family and make arrangements. Ron and Harry would both be at the Ministry, as usual, which left Severus alone in the house.

"What do you expect me to do?" he groused to her as they both sat on the edge of his bed.

"Organize potion ingredients? Go over the recipes again?"

Severus snorted. "You know very well I couldn't improve on the organization you have already imposed. And I've written down every recipe I remember, and several I don't quite - I can't brew anything myself, not with this squib wand and collar."

Hermione leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his collar, smiling peacefully. "I'm sure you'll find something to do, Professor."

And Severus had a thought. "Would it be all right if - if I spent the day upstairs? I could at least make myself useful - you don't have a house elf, I believe."

Her brow crinkled. "I thought you very specifically didn't want to be treated like a house elf."

"I don't, but . . ." _It's hard to explain_. He settled for a half-truth. "Much as I may have inhabited the dungeons at Hogwarts, I do like seeing the sun once in a while. And I only had the most cursory look at the house upstairs."

Hermione studied his face, clearly understanding he wasn't telling her everything, but eventually she nodded and leaned in to kiss his cheek. "I don't think Ron and Harry would mind, so I don't mind either. Come on up."

And so, for the first time in his almost-month living with the Golden Trio, Severus got to climb the stairs and explore the main part of the house. Hermione walked him through each room, took him upstairs, and showed him their three bedrooms as well as the shared areas. It was an average-sized house, obviously of older construction, but well-built. Severus approved.

"So where are we going to do the tests?" he asked. "And what tests do you intend? Since I'm guessing you're not planning on conjuring a full moon tonight . . ."

She snorted. "Downstairs in the parlor, I should think. It's got room and we can push the furniture out of the way. It also has the best windows."

"To gain any moonlight you can get?"

"Exactly." Her gaze went unfocused, a sure sign she was thinking something through. "It's a half moon tonight - if I could wait for a full moon, I would, but we need to be certain of this potion sometime before your hearing, and the next full moon won't be until afterward. So I'm hoping we can focus and magnify as much moonlight as we can into the room."

Severus followed her back down the stairs as she thought, occasionally voicing her ideas aloud. They needed to dose the children with the potion, contain them somehow in case the potion didn't work or had unintended side effects, then expose them to as much moonlight as possible and hope any flaws in the potion became apparent. The problem was, though, if the reflected moonlight wasn't enough - and Severus suspected it wouldn't be. There had to be another way to bring the werewolf to the fore - after all, Feynrir Greyback managed to change at will -

"Do you know the 'Essence of Self' transfiguration spell?" he asked Hermione suddenly.

She turned to him and frowned. "I don't think so . . ."

"You'll need it." The more he thought about it, the more he knew he was right. "The moonlight will help, of course, but the only way to know for sure that the potion cures the werewolf bite is if you are sure the children aren't still werewolves - and the only way to do that outside of a full moon is with Essence of Self."

"And you know this spell?"

Severus narrowed his eyes at her. "Doesn't really matter, does it? It's not like I can demonstrate."

"Sure you can." And she handed him her wand.

He blinked. "Hermione -"

"Just show me the movements, Professor. I know you can't actually cast it, but learning it from you will be a lot easier than trying to track down a book."

It was odd to hold a real wand again after so long. He could feel the magic contained within it, could feel the tingle against his palm, but it was like there was a barrier between him and actually _feeling_ the magic directly. _Like a full-body magical condom_, he thought sourly. Still, it was better than nothing, and if he focused . . .

Severus pointed the wand at Hermione and performed the series of complex movements befitting the complex spell. He prayed he remembered them right. "This, and the incantation is '_cedus cici veris_' on the second upward flick. You also have to keep your mind perfectly blank, or else you risk contaminating the results of the spell." He handed her back the wand.

Hermione copied his movements more or less exactly on her first try. Severus was impressed. She tried it again, adding the incantation. "It's not working," she said.

"That's because you're not casting it toward anyone."

"May I?" And before he could answer, she pointed her wand at him. "_Cedus cici veris!_"

The spell tingled. Severus stood, rooted to the spot, as he watched a miniature ghostly copy of himself revolve slowly in the air between them. The tiny Severus Snape was flashing slowly through different scenes - as a boy, hiding in a cabinet while his drunken muggle father yelled at his mother in the kitchen. As a young student, working happily at his workbench in the potions classroom, eyes bright with concentration. As an older student, watching James and Lily walk away from him, hand in hand . . . _Oh Lily_ . . . And then as a young adult, curled up in front of the fire, book and glass of firewhiskey in hand. A more recent flash of him talking to Dumbledore in the Headmaster's office. Him lying, a bloody mess, in the Shrieking Shack with a gaping bite-mark in his neck - Severus had to turn away from that.

"Look," Hermione commanded. So he did - to see himself and Hermione, gloriously naked, entwined on the basement bed and writhing against each other. It was awkward to watch themselves like this, but strangely erotic. The miniature scene flashed and disappeared.

"So." Hermione drew him over to the sofa and sat down next to him.

"So." He swallowed. "The Essence of Self spell shows points in the target's life when they were particularly true to their true nature. If the children are still werewolves after they imbibe the potion, the spell will reveal it, because their true selves will no longer include memories of happy, child-like things."

Hermione snaked an arm around his waist and laid her head on his shoulder. "I noticed you didn't have any happy, child-like images either."

Severus tensed, hating his father all over again. But Hermione didn't press, just held him gently, and he eventually relaxed. "I didn't have a happy childhood, Hermione."

"I noticed something else, though," she said, and kissed the side of his neck. "There was nothing in there about you being a Death-Eater, either. That whole side of your life - for so many years - none of that was truly a part of you."

"I . . . knew that on some level, of course, but it still feels good to see it verified." He slipped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer to him. "And I'm glad you believe it, too. The more distance I can put from that part of my life, the better."

She crawled into his lap. "I think we're doing an admirable job of that already." And she kissed him.


	13. Chapter 13

Severus did end up doing a bit of straightening in the kitchen, but only for something to do. The rest of the day he spent in the parlor, fiddling with mirrors and angles. Hermione transfigured several knickknacks into large mirrors before she left, but she neglected to provide any sort of frames - which meant Severus had to painstakingly adjust each one by hand and then try to find ways to prop them up without losing the angle he had just acquired.

Hermione had remembered to transfigure the two end tables into twin cages - little more than wooden slats in the outline of a box, honestly, but they had plenty of time to work out a werewolf-proof containment spell before nightfall. Hermione had originally thought to just do one large cage, but Severus pointed out that it would be foolhardy - what if one child stayed a werewolf while the other turned back into a human, and they turned on each other? She had blanched, but agreed.

So by the time Ron, Harry, and Hermione all returned that evening - within fifteen minutes of each other, as it so happened - Severus had the parlor arranged more or less functionally. He also spent time in the kitchen. He initially intended to just kill time poking around, but quickly discovered the contents of the drawers were still in a "just moved in" state. With nothing else to do, he spent an hour or so organizing the pantry and cookware. And then when Hermione still hadn't returned, he turned his hand to cooking something. He wasn't a great chef - it's not like he exactly had a lot of chance to practice when at Hogwarts - but he cooked for himself when away from the school most of the time, so it wasn't too hard to throw something together.

The end result was a comically confused expression on Ron Weasley's face as he, followed by Harry, stepped into the kitchen and froze at the sight of their former potions professor in an apron, browning chicken in a skillet on the muggle stove.

"Professor?"

"Mr. Weasley, Mr. Potter." Severus nodded - remarkably civilly, he felt - and prodded the chicken to keep it from sticking to the pan.

"You're cooking."

"So it would seem."

"You're also in the kitchen."

"A rather necessary aspect of cooking, wouldn't you agree?"

Harry merely blinked and slid into a chair at the table, but Ron stood and stared for several more seconds.

"Need something, Mr. Weasley?" Severus asked, flipping the chicken over.

Ron started, obviously having been lost in thought. "No, it's just - haven't seen you up from the basement yet. At all, really."

Severus turned and pinned him with a pointed look. "I was led to believe that you weren't comfortable with me being loose in the house, as it were."

Harry flashed a smile, quickly hiding his reaction, but Ron flushed. "I didn't mean for it to be like that," he said.

"You didn't mean to keep me locked in the basement, conveniently out of sight and out of mind? One more thing for Hermione to deal with on your collective behalf? I'm skeptical."

Harry looked up at that. "You . . . called her Hermione."

Severus ran his comment back in his head, and damn, Potter was right. "I did," he admitted.

"You're on a first-name basis with her now?"

He bowed his head in acknowledgement. "As you say. I find that being solely at the mercy of one person for a prolonged period of time leads to a certain level of intimacy, wouldn't you agree?" He turned his back to the boys, ostensibly focused on his cooking, but he kept his senses open for any sign that they suspected . . .

. . . and there it was, the subtle shuffling of feet, indicating that both of them knew something else was going on, but neither were brave enough to say it to his face. Severus was tempted to say something else, push their embarrassment further, but it wouldn't have been fair to his Mistress -

Damn, had he started _thinking_ of her as "Mistress" now, as well? Severus pushed that line of thought far, _far_ back in his mind. His sexual adventures with Hermione - his Mistress - weren't something Weasley and Potter needed to know about, even if they did suspect.

"Good evening, everyone."

The sound of her voice made him jump, and in doing so he brushed his wrist on the hot edge of the skillet. Severus sucked in a breath and glared at the reddening stripe on his skin.

"Careful, Professor!" she chided, crossing to him and holding out her hand to inspect his wrist. Severus surrendered his arm. He caught the raised eyebrow from Potter, the slightly pursed lips from Wasley, but their dislike didn't matter as much now that Hermione was holding him gently and healing the burn with her wand.

"There, all mended. Do be more careful." Her serious mood passed and her eyes brightened. "You're cooking supper?"

Severus didn't want to think about how much her simple approval pleased him. If cooking for her made her happy . . . "I had the time," he said simply.

"Thank you." A smile flirted with the corner of her lips, and Severus knew she would have been kissing him silly right then if her friends hadn't been in the room.

The supper went surprisingly well. Severus felt rather proud of himself for how the chicken turned out - not a speck of black anywhere, but nicely cooked and still moist. The mashed potatoes were instant and the peas were boiled from frozen, but in his book, it still counted as preparing a meal and he was happy to take credit for it.

Supper was also the first time Severus had really had to observe the Golden Trio together since the war. It occurred to him that his "prolonged period of time" comment applied equally well to the three of them - they had been friends before their long months of hiding from Voldemort, of course, but something about being fugitives had given them a closeness few young witches and wizards ever experienced. Whatever feelings Hermione and Ron had for each other, the foundation was friendship and perseverance under extreme adversity.

Ron volunteered to wash up afterward - given that he, at least, had a wand, Severus wasn't going to object - while Severus, Hermione, and Harry constructed the magical cages. In the discussion that followed, Severus realized that Hermione wasn't the only one who had matured - Harry was completely different from the boy he had been, also.

He was more self-assured, for one. He had always had a bit of hubris, but now his confident interjections into the discussion were backed up with valid points and some fairly impressive magic. Severus found himself actually enjoying the back-and-forth of the debate - something he'd come to expect with Hermione, of late, but would have never dreamed he'd be doing with Harry Bloody Potter.

Potter was also well-versed in thinking like a dark creature. Which was not surprising, considering how long he'd have to live with the Dark Lord mucking about inside his head. He would probably always be rubbish at occlumency, but he was intuitive in other ways which suggested a promising auror career ahead of him. Severus was amazed to find himself truly wishing the boy - young man - well.

Ron eventually came to join them, contributing little of substance to the discussion but frequently getting in the way. It was no thanks to him that Harry and Hermione (with Severus's occasional guidance) finally constructed the two matching magical cages.

"Are you sure those will contain the werewolves?" Ron asked dubiously.

"Haven't you been listening?" Hermione grumbled. But she wasn't truly annoyed, Severus could tell, just exasperated at her friend's thick-headedness. _The Peter Pan of the Golden Trio - the only one to not grow up_ . . .

Which made it just as well that Hermione didn't seem to view Ron as a potential romantic partner for the future. Severus knew he had no right to want to keep her, but he'd be damned if he let her bundle him off (to Azkaban or otherwise) and start shagging that ginger-headed git. She deserved better.

_And better than me_. He knew it, didn't like it, but ultimately would have to accept it someday. And the choice was entirely out of his hands. Severus stole another glance at his Mistress, under the guise of inspecting the nearer cage. She held all the cards - and it scared the hell out of him.


	14. Chapter 14

The children, when they arrived, were both wide-eyed and quiet. They appeared in the fireplace, clinging to a pale blonde woman Severus assumed was their mother. The boy looked to be around six; the girl was probably closer to eight or nine.

Hermione stepped forward to welcome them, assuming the mantle of hostess for their little band. Severus, Ron, and Harry all stayed standing a respectful distance away from the new arrivals, hoping not to scare them.

"This is Kesala Creeloy, everyone, and her children Raphael and Naome. Mrs. Creeloy, this are my friends Ron Weasley, Former Headmaster Severus Snape of Hogwarts, and of course you have heard of Harry Potter."

The blonde witch tensed up at Severus's name, but relaxed at Harry's. Her eyes flicked rapidly back and forth among the four of them, but she managed to nod politely and prodded her children to do the same.

Harry cleared his throat. "If you would, Miss Naome, Mr. Raphael, we would like you to try a potion that Headmaster Snape and Miss Granger have created. We don't know for sure it will help, but we think it will. Is that okay with you?"

The children nodded, still silent. Probably struck dumb at meeting The Boy Who Sodding Lived All Over Again. Severus found himself wondering where their father was - had he survived the war? He realized he didn't really want to know.

Hermione put an arm around the children's mother and guided her to an armchair which Severus had angled so it faced both cages without getting in the way of the mirrors. She then knelt down, face-to-face with the children, and explained in simple terms what would happen. "This shouldn't hurt," she promised. "You'll each stand in one of those boxes there" - she pointed to the cages - "and Headmaster Snape will open the curtains so the moonlight comes in. I'm going to cast a spell - not a scary one, just something that will let us see whether there's a werewolf inside you."

"There is," the girl whispered. "Raph and me both have werewolves in us and mom says we have to be very careful around the moon because the werewolves might come out and hurt someone like they hurt daddy."

_Fucking Feynrir Greyback_. Severus ran through a long and inventive list of mental curses in the awkward silence which fell in the room.

Hermione recovered first. "The boxes will keep you safe, okay? They'll keep everyone safe. We're going to give you each some potion to drink, and cast the spell again. That's all, really. If the potion does what we think it's going to, the werewolves inside you will go away and you'll be back like you were before."

The children nodded. "We can do that," said the boy. They both turned and, with poise which would have done any adult witch or wizard proud, they climbed into the cages and stood silently, their eyes fixed on Hermione.

"First the spell," said Hermione. "_Cedus cici veris!_"

A miniature copy of the girl rotated in the air. It was much fuzzier than the miniature Severus Hermione had spelled that morning. The tiny girl faded in and out a few times, then was replaced by -

"Merlin's balls!" exclaimed Ron. He was a distinct shade of green and looked like he was trying very hard not to lose the remains of his dinner. Severus didn't blame him - the girl in the spell was flashing between human and werewolf, and the Essence of Self spell seemed to be stuck on a single scene - that of the girl/werewolf flaying a figure Severus assumed was her father. It was no more gruesome than many of the things he had witnessed the Death Eaters doing over the years, but Severus could absolutely understand Mr. Weasley's revulsion. _I wish I were still that unused to this kind of violence_, he thought to himself, but it was far too late for regrets of that nature.

Hermione quietly turned to the boy and repeated the spell, with similar results.

"I . . ." She swallowed hard. "I'm sorry you had to see that again, Naome, Raphael, Mrs. Creeloy. Severus, would you please get ready to open the curtains?" She flashed each child an unsteady smile and pulled two flasks out of her robe. "Drink these first," she told them, and they obeyed silently.

Severus waited until both children had handed their empty flasks back to Hermione and his Mistress was _well_ away from the cages before he pulled back the curtains. The parlor was immediately flooded by moonlight - with the addition of a few channeling spells and an obscene number of mirrors, he and Hermione had managed to focus most of the moonlight onto the two cages.

And it was working. Doing _something_, anyway. First the boy, then the girl cried out, and fell back to a feral crouch. They were breathing heavily, shuffling as if they were itching to burst out of their own skins -

And then it was done. Both children collapsed, boneless, on the floor, and within seconds they were sound asleep. Kesala Creeloy jumped up from her chair, ready to go to them, but Harry held her back.

"Not yet - please -"

Hermione cast two more Essence of Self spells, one right after the other. The two children's miniatures revolved in tandem, offset by only the second or two it took her to utter the spell.

Mrs. Creeloy licked her lips. "Are they . . ."

"Watch," said Harry. And they all watched, as the miniature children flashed through scene after scene - the boy riding a toy broomstick, the girl hugging a stuffed dragon nearly larger than herself. Both of them snuggled into their father's lap as he read them a story. The girl sitting in a garden, covered up to her ears in mud, grinning madly.

"They're . . . better."

"Looks that way." Harry stepped forward and gave the woman a sideways hug. Ron came and joined the two of them in the embrace. And Hermione -

Severus was caught by surprise by her lips on his. "We did it!" she exclaimed quietly.

He kissed her back, briefly but thoroughly. "You're amazing, Mistress," he whispered. He thought he had said it quietly enough to not be overheard, but something made him glance up - and he caught Ron Weasley's wide-eyed stare as it transformed into something akin to fury.

_Damn - the kiss_. It was practically second nature to him and Hermione by this point, but obviously she hadn't let her would-be boyfriend in on their secret . . .

But now was not the time. Severus stepped back, a safe distance from temptation, and willed Hermione to look behind her. She read it in his face and turned, just in time to see Ron's glare. Severus expected to see panic in her face, but when she turned back to him she just reached out and gave his hand a brief squeeze before going to close the curtains again.

"I can't tell you how much it means to me that you brought them here, Mrs. Creeloy," she said. Her words were some sort of unspoken signal to everyone that now was the time to return to normal - Harry and Ron stepped away and each went to retrieve one of the sleeping children.

"They'll be okay?" the mother asked.

"The werewolf inside them is gone," Hermione assured her. "They'll probably sleep well tonight, but it's just their magic mending itself - tomorrow you'll have your children back." She flashed a friendly smile. "Would you be willing to let Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley help you get them home?"

And so it was that Hermione and Severus were left alone in the parlor as Harry and Ron and the three Creeloys disappeared through the flue. Hermione was kissing Severus again almost before Harry was out of sight.

"You are bloody brilliant, Professor," she said in between kisses. "Now we'll have to spend the next week and a half smashing more of those ridiculous star-thistle pods, won't we?"

He licked behind her ear in that way which never failed to make her shiver. "Not tonight, we won't."


	15. Chapter 15

They went up to Hermione's room, a welcome change of scenery from the basement. Severus surprised Hermione by scooping her up and carrying her up the staircase, bridal-style, and she surprised him by taking his earlobe in her teeth and then whispering such deliciously vile things in his ear that he nearly dropped her right there on the stairs. It was entirely understandable, then, that it took them three tries to actually make it down the hallway to her room, with frantic bouts of kissing and groping in between.

Their clothes didn't come off until they were actually inside her bedroom, but it was a close thing. Hermione undressed them both with her wand the second they crossed the threshold, slamming the door behind them with a second spell. Severus lost no time in immediately swinging her around and pinning her against the closed door, her nude body pressed deliciously against his own.

"Cast a featherweight charm on yourself," he demanded.

Hermione opened her mouth, presumably to object to Severus ordering her around, but he flexed his naked hips against hers and all that came from her throat was a groan. She licked her lips (Merlin, why did that turn him on so much?), then awkwardly turned her wand on herself and cast the spell.

"Why- ah!"

Severus gave her no time to question him - the moment he felt her weight disappear, he lifted her by her hips and slammed her against the door with her cleft at just the right height for his tongue. The top of her head nearly brushed the ceiling. Hermione bucked and squirmed, making a wide variety of delightful noises, but he kept his hands tightly around her waist and her hips pinned to the door as he tasted her.

Spirits alive, she was intoxicating! For what was probably the first time in his life, Severus was grateful for his abnormally large nose, because it meant he could penetrate her with his tongue and tease her clit in tiny circles with his nose at the same time. She writhed and arched and eventually wrapped her heels over his shoulders, leaving herself open to his attack. Her hands fisted in his hair, urging him deeper, and he gladly accepted the prompt. She came in a warm burst, yelling his name.

Severus lowered her slowly, licking and kissing his way back up her body as he did so. Her naked skin slid deliciously against his until he finally let her toes touch the floor. He expected her to need a moment to catch her breath, to demand something of him, but Hermione shocked him by continuing downward until she was kneeling between his legs, her body trapped between his and the door.

"Lean forward," she demanded. "Hands on the doorframe, and don't move them. Eyes closed."

He was following her orders before his brain even registered she had given him the command. Her position should have given him a warning, but with his eyelids shut, it was a complete surprise to him when she shifted her weight slightly and then his cock was engulfed in something warm and wet and she was twirling her tongue around him greedily.

Severus's head fell forward so violently he cracked his forehead on the door, but he was far beyond caring. "_Mistress_," he breathed.

He could feel her smile around his cock. In their almost-month together, she had never done this, never given him this gift - his pleasure was always incidental to hers, a firm caress or a slide of her hip against his cock being all the stimulation he needed after being worked to a fever pitch for her benefit. Even the one time she had let him plunge inside her, bringing her to a noisy orgasm on top of him, his release had been a manual afterthought once she was already satiated and once again coherent. This was -

A dainty hand caressed his balls and tightened firmly, just as she moved her head forward to take him all the way down to the hilt, and Severus couldn't hold himself back from thrusting into her throat and coming with a deep groan. Hermione kept her mouth and hands on him until the last wave of sensation had passed and he was weak at the knees - only then did she sit back on her heels and command him to open his eyes.

Profanity warred with awe in his brain, but Severus found himself completely unable to express with words how amazing the sensation had been. She seemed to understand his silence.

"On your back on the bed," she ordered.

Severus gratefully complied, flopping backwards onto her (much softer than his own, he noted) mattress and letting his eyes drift closed again. "Thank you, Mistress," he whispered.

"We're not done yet." She hopped up on the bed next to him and started tracing circles with her palm on his chest. "But we can take a minute to regroup first."

He felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips. "Fine by me."


	16. Chapter 16

"So - talk first then play, or vice versa?"

She leaned down and placed a comfortable kiss on his lips. "Talk, I should think - we probably don't have long until Ron and Harry get back. And I did notice the way Ron looked at you."

Severus groaned. "He's possessive of you. And he never liked me anyway."

"I think that's part of it. And part is that he's never been willing to take a hint - we're friends, but I've never thought about him like that. Especially because of Harry."

Severus cracked one eye open. "What about him?"

Hermione grinned and kissed his forehead. "He's had a crush on Ron for - oh, I'd say at least a year now. Not that he'll admit it, of course, but it's obvious from the way he looks at him, or rather, the way he _avoids_ looking at him unless he thinks no one can see."

_The Boy Who Lived is gay?_ Severus propped himself up on his elbows and considered. "I suppose I haven't really seen much of him in the last year, so I never noticed."

"Ron never notices either." Hermione snorted. "I'm not even sure if he's bi - that may be why Harry is keeping his feelings to himself. Either way, I'm not interested in Ron like that in the first place and I'm _definitely_ not interested in breaking my other best friend's heart."

"Sounds like Weasley may be in for heartbreak anyway."

She gave a little half-shrug. "He's being a selfish prick, honestly, and after my fight with him yesterday, I'm not inclined to take his demands into account anymore. The whole reason you had to stay in the basement in the first place was because Ron couldn't stand the idea of sharing the rest of the house with you. I mean, at first I was worried you were going to run off and I'd get in trouble for it, but it was clear pretty quickly that you were content to stay."

Severus speared a hand through the waves of hair cascading down beside her face, tugging her mouth down to his. "More than content," he murmured, and kissed her.

She allowed it for several drawn-out kisses, but then she pulled back with a groan. "I think they're back."

She was right, of course - Severus had registered the sound of voices downstairs halfway through that drugging kiss - but he wasn't inclined to let go. "Let me make you forget about them, Mistress," he whispered.

Hermione's eyes grew wider, but she didn't object when Severus shifted and started layering kisses downward, down the column of her throat and then to her breasts. She stiffened when he sucked one nipple into his mouth, but she didn't make a sound.

"Let it out," he said against her skin. "We have nothing to hide from them." And he rolled them so she was pressed beneath him, pinned to the mattress. Her little "Oh!" of surprise sent a thrill through them both.

After that it was almost a game to keep his attention split between the door and the heady feel of the witch beneath him. Severus determined he was going to make his Mistress so damn needy she wouldn't care whether her two best friends knew what was going on or not. Harry and Ron's voices grew louder as they ascended the stairs, but they were bickering about something and it sounded like they stopped halfway up. Severus put his time to good use.

Hermione's breathless little cries grew to become full-on moans and pleas as Severus worked his tongue down over her stomach and between her legs. He shifted her knees further apart, wedging them with his shoulders, and he could feel his Mistress quivering, on the cusp -

"Mistress, would you like me inside you?" _Holy hell, please say yes_ . . .

Her verbose and extremely eloquent stream of words and incoherent syllables seemed to indicate agreement. Part of Severus heard the conversation on the stairs stop and the footsteps come nearer - the other part of him was fully focused on hauling himself up Hermione's body and sliding into her warmth and _fuck it was good_ and she squeezed her muscles around him and he bloody near came at the sensation, but not yet, it wasn't his turn yet -

Hermione screamed - literally screamed - when she came. Severus came moments later, riding hard on the feeling of her inner walls pulsing around his cock, and let out his own louder-than-usual groan. He rolled off to the side, turning to look at his beautiful Mistress as she recovered.

The footsteps stopped outside the door. "Hermione?" Ron's voice called hesitantly.

"Bugger off!" Severus said in his most commanding tone.

"I don't think she's in the mood to talk to you right now, mate," came Harry's voice.

"But she's in there with-"

"Snape, as you no doubt heard," Hermione called back. "Kinda busy right now, Ron."

Severus leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. "Think he'll take the hint now?" he whispered.

Ron banged on the locked door. "We need to talk!"

Severus turned and glared at the door behind him. "We've got better things to do, Weasley," he growled. "Go talk to Potter."

Hermione's mouth dropped open, but Severus swooped in for a kiss before she could chastise him. "They've got to figure it out eventually," he murmured against her lips.

"Come on, Ron," said Harry. "Let's go downstairs and leave them alone for a bit."

Severus snuggled closer to Hermione's body and let his fingers drift across her naked chest. "Best idea he's had all day," he whispered.


	17. Chapter 17

It was an hour or so later - a pleasant hour in which they both dozed off - when the next knock sounded on the door.

"Hermione? Professor?" Harry called. "Ron and I talked, and, well, he's just leaving now. I'd really like to talk to you - both of you. When you're decent. Actually, I'm just going to go to my room now, but come in a bit?"

Hermione looked from the door to Severus, then dropped a sleepy kiss on Severus's lips. "Give us just a minute, Harry."

They dressed in silence, but with several little touches and brushes which continued to give little thrills even though Severus was more drained than he could ever remember being. Something about just _being_ with Hermione made him feel happy, even when he wasn't thinking about sex. It was odd, to say the least, and he still shied away from examining that particular fact.

Harry's room was actually rather tastefully done, Severus had to admit a few minutes later. The quilt on the bed was a vivid Gryffindor red, but other than that, the decor was all natural woods and golds and there was a noticeable lack of the tacky posters and knick-knacks Severus had come to assume was universal to teenage boys, based on his trips through the Slytherin quarters.

Hermione went immediately to Harry and squeezed him in a brief hug. "What happened?" she asked.

The Boy Who Lived looked significantly less lively than usual, Severus realized. Which of course Hermione had realized right away.

"We had that talk you were suggesting," Harry said. "I told him -" He flicked a glance up at Severus, who kept his face blank. "He was ranting about the two of you, and how you should have been with him. And I told him you wouldn't do that to me, and he didn't understand, and I told him I was gay, and he called me a fucking faggot and left before I got a chance to explain."

"Oh, Harry . . ." She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face against his neck. "I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, well, he stormed off to his room and five minutes later he and all his stuff were gone. Back to the Burrow, I'm guessing." He let out a shaky breath. "I can't say I wasn't expecting that reaction, but I just . . . I can't help how I feel, you know?"

_I know._

Hermione squeezed him again and backed up enough to look into his face. "It's kind of the same with me and Severus, I guess. I didn't intend for this to be . . . more . . . but it is and I'm not sad for that."

Harry smiled a bit at that. "I've known you had a crush on him since sixth year, Hermione. This was pretty much inevitable."

Severus cocked an eyebrow, which Harry noticed immediately. "Not that I assumed you'd be shagging your students, Professor! But you're the only wizard I've met who is even close to being as brilliant as Hermione, and if even I could see that, surely she would figure it out too. She's been so damn lonely . . ." His eyes swept over Hermione and then back up to his former professor. "It's been hard to be the Golden Boy," he continued in a lower voice. "But I imagine it's even harder to solve all my problems and still have to stand in my shadow, all because of some ridiculous prophecy. She deserves to be happy."

Severus kept his eyes locked on Hermione's. "Making people happy has never been my strong suit," he admitted honestly, "but I've been trying my best."

She rewarded him with a wavery smile.

"So." Harry backed away from the two of them and sat on the edge of his bed. "Now that all that's out of the way. Err . . . want to move your things up here, Professor? We seem to find ourselves with an empty bedroom, and unlike certain narrow-minded gits I could mention, I have no problem with you actually living in my house. In, not under."

Severus nodded. "Given the circumstances, perhaps you should both get used to calling me by my given name rather than my title - I don't expect I'll be teaching potions any longer, not after this whole mess." He neglected to mention that the handful of times Hermione had called him by his given name, she had been climaxing at the time. _I wonder if she even realized it_ . . .

"You going to be okay, Harry?" Hermione asked. "I mean, I knew Ron over-reacts to things sometimes, but I just can't - his behavior was inexcusable, and I don't know what to say."

Severus stepped closer to her and brushed back the hair spilling over her shoulder - a gesture which would have been foreign to him two months ago, but felt comfortably familiar now. "He's going to need time to adjust, obviously. He's had two big shocks in one day - that you aren't interested, and that Harry might be. I think . . . perhaps you shouldn't assume that words spoken in anger reveal his true feelings for Harry, or homosexuality in general. The three of you have weathered worse before."

And Hermione leaned into him, and Harry had a hopeful look in his eyes, and everything suddenly felt like it would be all right.


	18. Epilogue

Hermione had, of course, been correct. News of the werewolf-curing potion appeared in the _Prophet_ the next day (thanks to some string-pulling by Harry at the Ministry), and the article prominently mentioned it was a joint effort between Miss Hermione Granger, friend of the Boy Who Lived, and the ex-professor-ex-Death-Eater Severus Snape, currently awaiting trial. That article was followed by one the day after, an interview with The Boy Who Lived himself, in which Harry Potter explained in an implausibly fawning tone all about how Hermione had saved her former professor from dramatic certain death at the hands of a giant magical snake, how she claimed a blood debt to keep him from Azkaban because the Ministry didn't care to learn how Severus Snape had secretly provided Harry the solution to killing Voldemort, and how the two of them had been hard at work for the last month developing this cure for all the witches and wizards affected by Fenrir Greyback's cruelty. The article was a bit long on the melodrama and short on actual facts, and it pointedly failed to mention that the giant magical snake in question was not, in fact, present when Miss Granger saved her former professor, but it certainly set the wizarding world afire with speculation.

The third article to appear - not surprisingly, written by Rita Skeeter - described a blossoming romance between Hermione Granger and Severus Snape. It had even fewer facts correct than the previous two articles, and it made no mention at all of the potion. It turned out to have the biggest impact on the trial, though - all of a sudden, Severus Snape was no longer the intimidating potions master so many witches and wizards had experienced at Hogwarts. Instead, he was repainted as a dramatic Byronic hero, brooding but with a secret _tendre_ for one specific witch with frizzy mahogany hair and more smarts than were good for her. Hermione actually had to disconnect the fireplace from the Floo Network because so many witches and wizards were popping their heads in, requesting interviews.

"Load of rubbish, all of it," Severus grumbled as he folded the day's _Prophet_ and placed it neatly on the kitchen table. "I'd like to know where those reporters were when the Dark Lord was controlling the Ministry - why not speculate about _that_?"

Hermione came up behind his chair, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed the back of his ear. "They'd rather speculate about us, of course," she purred. "I'm sure I'm not the only young witch who ever developed a crush on you, Professor Snape."

Severus groaned, a sound which turned into more of a pant when Hermione nibbled on his earlobe. "Never asked for any of that."

"No, but you got me. And I got you. I'm satisfied." She pulled his chair back from the table and slid around to sit sideways in his lap. "St. Mungo's has put in a request for as much of the potion as we can make, by the way - they've had parents turning up in droves."

The potion ended up having to wait another hour or so. Harry apparated in just as they were finishing for the day, sweaty and exhausted. He clomped down the basement stairs, waving a piece of parchment.

"You're cleared, Severus!" he announced. "The Ministry has withdrawn the charges against you - under pressure from nearly the entire wizarding community, as I understand it. Can't have a secret war hero sent to Azkaban."

Hermione snatched the parchment and quickly read it over. "About bloody time," she muttered.

"Yes, well, it's done now," Harry said, discomfort suddenly coloring his tone. "That decree is also the key, Hermione - tap the spell at the bottom with your wand and then tap the collar and it should come off. I, ah . . . I'll leave you to it." And he practically apparated back up the stairs.

"Ready for this?" she asked.

Severus swallowed. "I suppose." And although he never would have wanted to say it aloud, he realized he would miss the thing. A bit.

Hermione tapped the parchment, then brought her wand up to Severus's neck. There was a popping noise and a tiny puff of smoke, and then the collar fell away. Severus couldn't stop his hand from flying up to rub at the newly-revealed skin - the scar from Nagini was still there, he felt, but it no longer itched like it had before the collar.

They both stood silently, looking at the collar on the floor, for a long time.

"I suppose I'll need to get your wand back sometime soon," Hermione finally said.

"Yes, that would be helpful."

More silence.

"I wonder . . . you know . . ." Severus couldn't believe he was blushing. "Do we get to keep it? The collar? Because if so, I wouldn't object to . . . keeping it around for a while. For special occasions."

Her smile lit up the room. "I didn't want to ask it of you, but - yes, I think I'd like that. For special occasions."

Severus stepped closer and claimed her mouth in a scorching kiss, pressing until they were both panting and breathless. "I like to keep my Mistress happy," he murmured.

The heat in her eyes would have melted metal. "Show me."

* * *

So that's it - thanks to all of you who stuck with me through my crazy almost-daily updates for this and "Not the Marrying Kind." I hope this was the happier ending you were hoping for! I've got several other ideas - mostly Snape-related - so feel free to follow my account and get updates whenever I get started on the next one. I can't guarantee everything will be Harry Potter, but most of it will :-)


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